Susan Stillman/Artist Statement
The landscape I see every day shapes my work in paint. The views from my windows high on a hill, and my daily walks through all seasons fuel my fascination with light and its transformative effect on color and tone. Though I am intimately familiar with this terrain, I approach it with the curiosity and wonder of a traveler, striving to see it anew each time.
Series evolve as I revisit images that have left an impression in my memory. Road trips in the US and Europe have also inspired new series, where light remains the main protagonist.
The scale of the work has an impact on how the images are perceived. Larger paintings invite the viewer to enter the space created and smaller scale work feels fragmentary, echoing the sense of moving through the landscape noticing flashes of color on the periphery. Roughened texture on the substrates allows color to peek through and animate the surface, inspired by ancient, frescoed walls I encountered in Italy, adding a sense of history and depth to the work.
An absence of the figure is deliberate, disallowing any imposition of narrative and leaving the focus entirely on the moment captured and it’s specific qualities of light, color and tonal saturation.