About

  • Artist Statement

    Artist Statement

    Susan Swartz is a career environmental artist. Working figuratively in her early years, she later embraced abstraction as a means for free expression, developing a unique style thickly layering paint and building relief surfaces using flora. Her vision is to capture and convey the luminous colors and textures our natural world, as well as its essential role in our wellbeing. It is wondrous, despite her own six year long battle with environmental illness, that Swartz’s work has consistently embraced positivity. Her deep faith— both spiritual and in the goodness of humanity—has resulted in works that express nature’s enduring vitality and serve as an urgent call to appreciate all that it offers.

     

    With solo exhibitions at International museums and galleries across the USA, as well as in Germany, Portugal, Austria, London, Italy, Hungary, Russia, New Zealand and China, Swartz is recognized as a singular female voice in environmental painting. She has exhibited alongside peers such as Edward Burtynsky and Sebastião Salgado who share a dedication to environmental care and preservation. Despite the wide reach of her exhibitions and her longstanding dedication to environmental activism, Swartz remains critically under-recognized within a genre historically dominated by men. Rather she has created her own spaces and collaborations with environmental initiatives to create impact. Her latest work “Looking After the Lake” is a relief readymade composed of dried materials collected from Great Salt Lake—a body of water now at a critical tipping point of disappearing and creating severe devastation.

  • Biography

    Throughout her storied career, American abstract painter Susan Swartz has intently explored themes from the natural world.  Her vibrant, layered artworks lie at the intersection of art, nature, and spirituality, expressing environmental urgency while transforming color, texture, and movement into immersive, contemplative experiences. 

     

    Her dedication as an environmental activist was recognized in Salt Lake City when she was selected as the Official Olympic Environmental Artist for the 2002 Olympic Winter Games.  Shortly thereafter, she battled two environmentally borne illnesses which deepened her advocacy for environmental stewardship.  These experiences marked a pivotal shift in her practice—from realism to abstraction—as she moved from depicting what she saw to creating expressive and interpretive artworks. 

     

    “Pulsating with dazzling color, Susan Swartz’s abstract landscapes simultaneously articulate her awe of the natural world and her rallying cry for its preservation.” -Dr. Susan Fisher Sterling, Director of the National Museum of Women in the Arts 

     

    Today, Swartz often incorporates actual foliage into her paint, including the very food we consume. These tactile canvases push beyond the frame, connecting audiences to emotive materials.  With the Great Salt Lake only 50 miles away, Swartz has recently embedded found material from its drying beds in her work to draw attention to its critical need for restoration. 

    An established artist, Susan Swartz has participated in solo museum and gallery exhibitions throughout the United States as well as in China, England, Russia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, and Portugal.  Her artwork is held in museum, embassy, private, public, and corporate collections.  She works actively from studios in both Park City, Utah and Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts.