Increasingly, I find myself at a nexus point between the practice of art and the pursuit of optimal health. My latest work is an expression of that exploration.

In celebration of Women’s Equality Day August 26,2020, Zions Bank sponsored artist Jann Haworth to create a 5000 square foot mural featuring 250 prominent Utah women.  Susan is honored to be featured alongside such trailblazing women leaders in our community. 

Today's forced seclusion and wake up call to stay healthy has once again granted me the luxury of time to ponder what really matters. The clarity that our seclusion affords is a gift and it motivates me to renew my pledge to truly appreciate, exalt, protect and preserve the beauty of nature through my art in every way I can.

This is why I paint.

Last Saturday August 31st, Susan was honored to unveil one of her latest paintings, Zion’s Glow (72x72” acrylic on linen) at the Zion National Park Centennial Celebration. Commissioned by Zions Bank, the painting was dedicated at the VIP Dinner for the Utah Symphony concert featuring Sting.

Susan Swartz Studios is pleased to announce the upcoming dedication of Swartz’s latest commission, Zion’s Glow, a 72x72” acrylic on linen painting. Commissioned by Zions Bank, this large-scale painting is a gift to Zion National Park in honor of its Centennial year.

Artist Susan Swartz was honored to be invited as one of five exhibiting visual artists to participate in the groundbreaking kick off of the new Melides Art Pavilion designed by James Waterworth, SOHO House's former European Design Director. The exclusive invite only launch took place on May 18 to coincide with Lisbon's prestigious annual contemporary Art Fair, ARCO 2019 which took place May 15 - 19. ARCO boasts an interesting mix of Portuguese and international artists drawing leaders in the European art world, writers, photographers and critics there to take part.

The Kingdom of Bhutan is a land of startling beauty and aesthetic contrast: craggy peaks and verdant valleys, fraying rope bridges stretching across milky blue glacial rivers, terraced rice paddies and stone templates strung with faded prayer flags. Much has been made of Bhutan’s promotion of Gross National Happiness as its primary national measurement.

As the Salzburg Festival commences in earnest this week, Susan Swartz has made the trek from her studio on the sea in Martha’s Vineyard to the mountains of Austria. Traveling to Salzburg to celebrate the beginning of the Festival and the continuation of her exhibition, A Personal Path, Susan’s journey is in many ways representative of the breadth of her collection. From the waves that lap at the shores of Massachusetts to the winds that blow across the forested peaks of the Wasatch Mountains in Utah, Susan is a master of depicting scenes of great beauty from both settings.

The most recent painting in Susan’s abstract Water Study series, Water Study 005 pushes viewers out of their comfort zone and upends the color story we associate with water: clear blues and milky greens. Instead, Susan gives us the opposite end of the color spectrum—hues that could be interpreted as the last coral traces of a peaceful sunset reflected on the ocean, or as a corrosive, clogged and wholly unnatural waterway.

While Susan has fully embraced abstract painting only for the past few years, there was foreshadowing of a major artistic revolution in some of her earlier work, like Exploding Sky from 2008 or even Calm Day from 2009.

As the bright blooms of spring begin, one hue finally dominates the landscape around Susan’s studio in the Utah mountains: green. Susan is well accustomed to this annual shock of strong alpine color and has incorporated summer’s shade into many of her earlier works. Even so, a lifetime of mountain springs and ocean summers could not have prepared her for the particular and verdant hues of green that are native to Ireland.

If the history of the Earth were laid out on a clock, we humans would not appear until a minute before midnight as the writer Carl Sagan so aptly analogized in Cosmos. Despite our brevity on this planet, the impact of humankind has been disproportionately profound.

Whether it be from a literary or an artistic angle, both poet Henrietta Cordelia Ray and artist Susan Swartz seek to better understand natural waters by capturing their magnificence.

As part of the year long celebration of the 40th Anniversary of the Clean Water Act, today June 21st is Fishable Waters Action Day. Local Waterkeeper Alliance groups, fisherman and anyone interested in the health of their local waterways are fishing, boating or visiting their favorite water spot today. Susan, a longtime supporter of the work of Waterkeeper, urges everyone to join her in visiting their local stream, river, lake or ocean today to enjoy and observe its health.

June 22nd is officially the first day of summer in the northern hemisphere, a time when Susan travels down from her winter studio — perched at 8,500 feet elevation in Utah’s mountains — to her sea level summer studio off the coast of New England. Auspiciously, Susan's summer in Martha's Vineyard begins this year with a match race. The most exciting part of the race? Susan's husband, a seasoned competitive sailor, will be at the helm of his TP52 racing yacht, Vesper.

Yes, it really is an English year for Susan! In choosing the recent paintings for their Susan Swartz November exhibition, Belgravia Gallery loves Transition 17 60 x 60. It's still spring in the mountains, and this painting reminds Susan of the beautiful poem from 1967 by the great English poet Philip Larkin.

Before settling into her summer painting season in Martha's Vineyard, Susan traveled to the Amazon this spring. The Amazon Basin is a place palpably alive, and Susan could not just see and hear, but also feel the air pulsing with vitality there. During her travels, painterly images kept coming into her mind—bright colors and rich brushstrokes. Many years ago Susan was introduced to the work of another woman painter who she very much admires, British painter named Margaret Mee. Mee spent quite a bit of time painting in the Amazon in the middle part of the 20th century. “I see a lot of parallels between Margaret’s life and my own,” explains Susan. “Like me, she was an environmental activist and was plagued by environmental health problems. Also like me, she was a fiercely determined woman who painted her entire life.”

Although it is an early spring in most of the country this year, it is still winter in the mountains of Utah. Inspired by a late January trip to the English countryside, Susan has just completed a series of paintings entitled Winter Hush.

The Seasons of the Soul exhibition has finally wrapped up at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington, D.C. While Susan’s paintings coming down from the museum walls, the leaves are coming down from the aspens and Gambel oak trees surrounding Susan’s studio in Park City.