My paintings portray familiar animals, especially those essential to Maine’s farms and fisheries, from new perspectives. While I want my subjects to be recognizable, I minimize their environments, concentrate on negative space, and focus on light, reflections and shadows that capture gestures and animate interactions. I take my own source photos and create sketches on site for later studio work and draw on those intimate, tactile experiences of place while I compose paintings. After a 30-year career as an educator, I have reconnected with who I was as a nature-loving child: dwelling in that joyful, hyper-aware, process of discovery that accompanies sitting quite still and drawing or painting. On my website, you can subscribe to my monthly newsletter to learn about new work.
I am represented by Portland Art Gallery.
http://www.susanljohnsonart.com
