A Unique Scenery, A Doorway to the Heart
By Fan Di’an, President of the Central Museum of Fine Arts (CAFA)
I am very delighted that Susan Swartz’s exhibition can be held at CAFA. It is the first time that her works have been shown to the Chinese audience after being exhibited in Germany, Hungary, Austria and Russia.
“If a painter hopes to create marvelous art works, he should learn from nature and his own inner world”, a line put by Zhang Zao, a famous Chinese painter of the Tang Dynasty, might be the first sentence that comes into our mind when we stand before Susan’s paintings and appreciate the vibrant colors she used to depict different scenarios, either a stunning sunset, a luxuriant spring scene, or a wisp of mist above a glimmering river. Susan has studios in Park City, a quaint town in Utah, and Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. She travels to and from these two places every year. The mountains and the sea she has seen during these trips have brought her endless inspiration. We can feel the vivacity of nature in her paintings, whether they are simple or complex. These artworks originate from nature, but reflect her true thinking on the world. Each tint of color and trace of stroke on the canvas can reveal her creation process—asking herself a question, answering it by her own, and asking another... By repeating these Q&As, she is actually going deeper to her soul, which imbues her works with a restrained style and adds a spiritual reflection to the joy or splendor of the natural scenery. From this perspective, her creation method is consistent with major characteristics of the Chinese art, which focus on striking a balance between the scenes themselves and the feelings people have when they are in the scenes. In this process, people and nature, the self and the world are truly brought together.
Susan once mentioned that her works were greatly influenced by Caspar David Friedrich, an important figure in German art history. As a great landscape painter and a representative of Romanticism in Germany, Friedrich portrayed the sea and the mountains in an unprecedented cold and lonely way, injecting mysterious cultural charm into the tranquil landscape. In Susan’s artworks, we can also see the secret connection between natural scenery and spiritual philosophy.
Fan Di’an, Susan Swartz, and Walter Smerling, Curator of Susan’s solo exhibition, Personal Path at CAFA in 2018.
Men and nature are equal. Human beings are inspired by the infinite charm of nature. At the same time, they seek to have sincere conversations with nature. In the ceaseless exchanges, humans are able to clarify the meaning of their lives.
Susan’s creations were mainly realistic at first and then turned abstractive. This transformation of artistic language is natural as the only thing that she follows is her own heart. However, to use a “realistic” or “abstractive” way of creating is not a primary concern of Susan. The 83 works exhibited this time include those with very abstract shapes and also those kept with certain realistic features. What artists have to do is to find the most appropriate expression for their concerns and emotions. It is also this kind of artistic philosophy that makes Susan’s work free from the various paradigms that have been established in the field of abstract art in its more than one hundred years of history. She neither relies on precise calculation, which geometric abstraction demands nor tries to stay as casual as one can, a common method used in completing abstract paintings. She always listens to the voice from her heart, respects her true desire and aspiration, and naturally expresses her ideas and emotions. She has her own unique way of understanding the meaning of art creation. The brushstrokes and textures of her paintings reveal both rich senses and vivid characters of her as a female artist.
The exhibition is another collaboration between the CAFA and Stiftung für Kunst und Kultur e.V., following other cooperative projects, such as the “China 8 – China Contemporary Art Exhibition” (2015) and the “Deutschland8:Deutsche Kunst in China” (2017). We cherish the good friendship forged between us and look forward to further cooperation. Here, I would like to express my heartfelt thanks to all the friends who have worked hard for this exhibition!