Artist's Statement
My paintings are reimaginings of my accumulated memories and observations. I create a sense of place and time, exploring the complexities with which we perceive the world. In our contemporary experience we are bombarded with a barrage of images. I represent a perceptual reality from this montage of imagery--snapshots mitigated by memory and the light that illuminates it all.
For years I have been taking photographic notes and collecting imagery that serves as a collective library of subjects to draw upon when creating paintings and collages. When I work, I often weave together images from sometimes completely different sources or perhaps intertwine multiple perspectives of the same place. I collage the photos digitally or with scissors and glue, creating composites that I paint from. The synthesis may be subtle or presented as an open dialogue as in a diptych. This conversation between imagery is at the center of my work. There is no formula.
I develop a bond with my subjects, often creating a series of works based on the same place or structure. I attach meaning to the inanimate world, houses become bystanders to a drama of sorts, as I try to elevate suburban landscapes into psychological portraits.
Though I operate out of an American Realist tradition I also draw upon aesthetic inventions from Surrealism and Pop Art--all artists who represent the ordinary in extraordinary ways. Figuration, the object, and the perception of the world can be presented in infinite ways. I continue to interpret and represent my world view in an ever-evolving process.
artist's bio
Susan Barrett
Barrett explores the ordinary and ways it can be transformed by both light and the juxtaposition of objects and situations. She reacts to her environment, internalizing the objects she focuses on. The work comes from a synthesis of these subjects, as they exist and as she imagines them. The light transforms reality, suggesting a sense of an extended moment in time as the viewer visually travels through the work.
For years Barrett has been taking photographic notes and collecting imagery that serves as a collective library of subjects to draw upon when creating acrylic paintings, watercolors, drawings and collages. A lifelong resident of the Hudson Valley, many of the structures she adopts come from the riverside or the river towns where she discovered them. When Barrett works, she is often weaving together images from sometimes completely different sources or perhaps intertwining multiple perspectives of the same place. Barrett collages the photos digitally or with scissors and glue, creating composites that she paints from. The synthesis may be subtle or presented as an open dialogue as in a diptych. This conversation between imagery and the light that reveals it is at the center of Barrett’s work.
Barrett did her undergraduate work at Rhode Island School of Design and New York University. She then received an M.A. in painting from Hunter College as well as a degree in art education. She has exhibited throughout the New York metropolitan area in both galleries and institutions and has been teaching for over 25 years. Most recently, she had a solo exhibition at the Anna Bisland Historic 1928 House in Bronxville, was included in “Time, " (2021) a curated group show at Upstream Gallery, Hastings-on-Hudson (2021).