Winter Flowers: A Susan Swartz Solo Exhibition

Landscape of Resonances 006 shifts into a softer register, with a grey palette traced by luminous yellow striations. More subdued than the surrounding grid, the painting carries a gentle, golden glow, suggesting the return of light and warmth that signals the transition from winter toward spring.

Woodland Bouquet 2 anchors the installation, with its vivid ultramarine background. The surface is layered with natural elements, including branches, bark, moss, and flowers that extend dramatically beyond the canvas, giving the work a sculptural presence.

Winter Flowers features two works from Swartz’s recent series, Living Wall. True to the series’ name, the canvases are layered with natural elements—leaves, seeds, branches, and moss—bringing the textures and life of the outdoors directly into the gallery.

Mid-gallery, the deep blue canvas Moonlit Moment, an impressionist depiction of an aspen forest, is flanked by works from the Solitude series. These predominantly white canvases, made up of thick acrylic, reveal layers of underpainting beneath the surface, suggesting the slow melt of snow. Together, this section of the gallery highlights the muted colors and textures of winter, evoking stillness, quiet, and reflection.

Just beyond the quiet of Solitude, spring color begins to re-emerge. Approaching Storm introduces soft, brushed color. Adjacent, two Sunflowers paintings—one bright yellow, the other purple—are layered with dried floral elements from Swartz's own garden.

A small grid of four works from Nature Revisited follows. These 12x12" canvases are meant to be viewed up close with their delicate botanical impressions and whispers of color. The sequence concludes with Fresh Bouquet 1 and Fresh Bouquet 2. Set against white underpaintings, bold fields of red and turquoise burst forward, accented with splashes of red, yellow, and purple, like vivid, freshly gathered bouquets in full bloom.

At the back of the gallery, Spring Muse hangs as a field of green, with touches of white, blue, and purple that suggest clusters of hydrangeas. Beneath it, Nature Revisited 29 continues the theme of winter giving way to spring, with delicate floral impressions emerging from a soft white ground.

 

Swartz's paintings have been featured in solo exhibitions at King's College Cambridge in England; Georges Bergès Gallery in NYC; Jason McCoy Gallery in NYC; Galerie Noack in Berlin; the Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA) in Beijing; the Manetti Shrem Museum at UC Davis in California; the Russian State Museum in St. Petersburg; the Ludwig Museum in Budapest; the Ludwig Museum in Koblenz; Kollegienkirche in Salzburg; the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, DC; the Utah Museum of Fine Arts in Salt Lake City; and the Springville Museum in Springville, Utah. Swartz was also showcased at the Venice Biennale in 2024 and Art Miami in 2023. Her work is featured in numerous private and public collections around the world. Swartz paints from studios in Park City and Martha’s Vineyard.

 

 

Visit Susan Swartz Studios at 260 Main Street in Park City, open 12-7PM daily.