Palm Beach: Bold Strokes of Color
Art Palm Beach organizers David and Lee Ann Lester with artist Susan Swartz and her husband Jim.
Inspired by the natural world and the beauty of the environment, artist Susan Swartz is known as much for her environmental philanthropy and activism as for her paintings. And on the heels of this summer’s acclaimed show of her work at the National Museum of Women in the Arts in Washington D.C., the abstract expressionist artist will be honored with a one-woman show at the Michael James Fine Art exhibition during Art Palm Beach from Jan. 19-23, 2012.
A Pittsburgh native, Swartz now paints full-time from homes in Park City, Utah, and Martha’s Vineyard. Her recent paintings of towering Wasatch Mountain birch trees and seascapes at the Vineyard evoke an emotional and lyrical beauty using bold strokes of color that express the power and glory of nature. “I have always found solace and peace in nature. My spiritual reverence for nature and my painting kept me going in recent years as I was critically challenged by two environmentally bred illnesses—first mercury poisoning and then Lyme Disease,” Swartz says. “Now I paint the natural world with a fierceness and passion unknown to me before.”
Forced out of her comfort zone, Swartz has not only become bolder and riskier with her art, she has also stepped up her commitment to protecting and cleaning up the environment. “Mankind’s carelessness with the natural world has had a very personal effect on my health,” Swartz says. “The art I am creating now is more impassioned than anything I have created in the past. And I hope the reminder of this beauty is startling enough to inspire others to help serve as stewards of the environment.”
