ABSTRACT AT BELGRAVIA GALLERY

Several years ago, while waiting for the paint to dry on her impressionist work, Susan began experimenting with the abstract. In the time since, when Susan stands in front of a new canvas with a brush in hand, what has increasingly emerged are true abstracts, bold and full of impact.

One of her recent works, the 24×30 Trees of Gold, is being featured in ABSTRACT an exhibition at London’s revered Belgravia Gallery. No stranger to Susan’s paintings, the Belgravia hosted Susan’s solo exhibition, BREATH OF NATURE, last autumn. The British art critic, Godfrey Baker compared her work to the great German painters, 19th century high Romantic sage Caspar David Friedrich, and 20th century icon Gerhard Richter for its intriguing evocation of both the coastal splendor of Martha’s Vineyard and mountain drama of Utah’s Wasatch region. Barker wrote in the introduction to the exhibition catalogue:

“…Susan Swartz’s pictures evoke not only reverence and awe before nature…but often …a brooding mystery invades many of her works. Are there allusions to darkness in nature in her haunting landscapes? …Susan denies it, and hers must be the last word.”

— GODREY BAKER

Trees of Gold

24 x 30

Now, with the coming of a new season, comes a new piece with all the complex depth that Baker spotted in her earlier work. Trees of Gold carries the youthful neon shimmer of spring, but tempered by the reminder that this newness is ephemeral. The viewer is reminded of Robert Frost’s poem, Nothing Gold Can Stay:

“Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leafs a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.”

— ROBERT FROST

See Trees of Gold and the rest of ABSTRACT at the Belgravia Gallery through June 17, 2013.