Susan Swartz has had a busy and exciting year, highlighted by the opening of her eponymous art gallery.

Susan Swartz Studios, located at 260 Main Street, Park City, officially opened its doors on February 9th. It features paintings spanning the past 15 years of Swartz’s career –- her signature aspen works as well as her new, modern abstract pieces. The gallery has received much praise and has helped further Swartz’s reputation. It provides a beautiful and tranquil space for contemplative appreciation of Swartz’s relation with her art and the natural world.

Anytime a new gallery opens its doors, an unspoken invitation is issued to whet our palates on the delightful unknown. Beckoning to seasoned art collectors as well as those venturing into the art world for the first time, Modern West Fine Art seeks to further define the landscape of contemporary Western art and perhaps give us a glimpse of the future.

As a classically trained painter, Susan had certainly been exposed to the Pre-Raphaelites, but the Tate exhibition presented them in a new light, as an avant-garde movement. She was especially moved by the vivid natural imagery that appears in Pre-Raphaelite subjects, and by the art movement’s process of intensely looking at nature, which resulted in a new, distinctively modern style.