Susan Swartz Studios is thrilled to present Arrival, a selection of abstract paintings recently returned from four-year international solo tour, Personal Path. This is the grouping’s first debut in Swartz’s home state and place of creation. The celebrated journey of her distinct style and intimate connection with nature have led to solo exhibitions at prestigious institutions, including the Ludwig Museum at the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg, Russia; China Central Academy of Fine Arts in Beijing, China; the Manetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis, California; and Melides Art Pavilion in Melides, Portugal.
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The viscous, bold textures are an expression of Swartz attentiveness to her experiences in nature, challenging herself to see surroundings through a new lens. Art Historian, Alexander Borovsky describes the vibrancy in her direction as being “of the almost...optical, of the tactile, even the acoustic”.
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Each measuring 6 feet square, the three largest paintings in the Breaking Away series are a combination of natural earth tones, a sandy white and a mineral gray, applied in coordinating horizontal and vertical striations to give the impression of earth's natural geometry.
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Breaking Away 7, 201872 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
Breaking Away 8, 201872 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
Breaking Away 9, 201872 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
Fractured Mist
With Fractured Mist, Swartz has achieved a texture akin to the surfaces of the Breaking Away canvases. She has captured the ephemeral and shimmering quality of mist through delicately applied layers of paint.
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Fractured Mist, 201672 x 48 in
182.9 x 121.9 cm -
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Many of the paintings featured in Arrival were created during a pivotal time in Swartz's career as she began to regain her health following a decade-long battle with Lyme disease and mercury-poisoning. Swartz channeled the hardship into personal discovery, a new reverence for nature, and finding her own path in the largely domineering era of abstract, impressionistic painting.
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Evolving Visions
The Evolving Visions series can be interpreted from multiple viewpoints; perhaps the distant impression of the horizon, a skyward glance through a canopy of trees, or a view of dappled light across the surface of water. The series exemplifies Swartz transition between realism and abstraction. As the title suggests, the details are not meant to be static, but evolving visions of the natural world.
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Evolving Visions 2, 201572 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
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Nature Revisited
The Nature Revisited series shows a progression in Swartz’s style and a new approach to expressing the connection between her artwork and the environment.Instead of adding more paint and using thicker brushstrokes – as Swartz has done in some of her recent works – in this series, she imprints the paintings with various objects and tools to give a newly textured layered effect. Here, heavy applications of paint contrast with distinct images and fine lines. As always, Swartz’s inspiration is the environment; but, in this series, Swartz truly shows the connection between her work and nature.
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Aspen Touch
As a return to her roots, the Aspen Touch series is characterized by thick swoops of paint and golden brushstrokes reminiscent of Aspen trees. Purple has been a signature color throughout Swartz's career. Now she enriches it with a new form of expression and appreciation for nature.
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Afterlight
Swartz masterfully layers color to build texture and depth; her paintings seem to be illuminated from within.⠀
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Fall Muse
For Swartz, the changing seasons have long been her muse.
"Acrylics lend themselves to the boldness and drama of the American West-and the astonishing range of colors that I expectantly found in every season. Autumn somehow gives me permission to break all the rules-chartreuse, eggplant, cobalt blue and tangerine oranges-they swirl in my mind like autumn leaves."
-Susan Swartz
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Fall Muse 1, 201572 x 48 in
182.9 x 121.9 cm -
Vases
Swartz's oeuvre has expanded to include one-of-a-kind hand-painted vases. Each vessel is covered in a thick application of paint, reminiscent of her heavily textures series on linen. Painted from her Park City studio, the vases are a celebration of the heavy snowfall of winter, the bluebird days, and the emergence of spring.
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Swartz paints Evolution of Nature 18 from her home studio in Park City.
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Evolution of Nature 18, 202172 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
"So very often women artists have been exhibited as “becoming,” instead of artists who have arrived. [The Evolution of Nature series] are documents of an authentic voice, an overnight success decades in the making. They are an achievement, an arrival, they are your voice and only your voice singing loud and clear."
-Rachel Teagle, Founding Director of the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art
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Evolution of Nature 21, 202172 x 72 in
182.9 x 182.9 cm -
Swartz's approach to painting is a lifetime in the making. She accredits the opportunity to realize and tour Personal Path to friend and professional champion, Walter Smerling. Smerling is Chairman of Germany's Foundation for Art & Culture and recognized early on Swartz's courageous, intimate connection between nature, spirituality and art. He has orchestrated Swartz's exhibitions and events internationally since 2014. Smerling is coordinating the next debut of Swartz's work at Gallery Noack in Berlin, September 2021, curated by Silke Hohmann. The exhibition, Three Dimensions, is a bold new direction of Swartz's personal connection with nature and search for optimal health.
