Suzan Fant

Artist’s Statement:

My work, my art, is an exploration of possibilities. I sometimes see my art as musical images.  It is a lyrical abstraction of light and movement, color, and pattern.  I also see it as a fabulous game of hide and seek, of what is and what is not, and what is behind if it is indeed behind.  However, the work is always about personal interpretations and translations of an idea or presence of the shape or form of things.  There are hints and nods, admiration, plus a most grateful thank you to the Fauves and The German Expressionists.  I feel compelled to mention Milton Avery, Matisse,  Paladino, and Sean Scully; the naming of a few at the top of my list of artist favorites.

 

Working with mixed media and collage offers me numerous opportunities to see what was previously hidden in often unexpected ways.  My preference is to use archival papers and materials.  These are then printed, painted, and drawn on.  Occasionally some bits of “found” papers or textile are added.  There are almost always elements included which were formerly parts of other saved,  but to me flawed as “whole” pieces; reincarnated by being cut, torn, and manipulated into new images and forms.  Synchronicity is at work in the possibilities that present themselves while layering and choosing for a particular piece or series.  My choices and combinations are shaped by a history of avid interests in the Arts and Crafts Movement, in textiles, and Folk Art.  I am influenced by the sky, the sea,  gardens and all that they hold if only you look closely. These choices and combinations are then tempered by this ever-changing and evolving of the natural world around me, and that of my imagination.

 

Some of the pieces I make become prototypes for future work and frames of reference for others. They could also be looked upon as exercises in composition, in color, line, the dividing of space,  or even as what they have become: a glimpse into a secret garden, a not-so-still life, an illusory landscape, or that sense of catching out of the corner of your eye someone or something you thought you knew.

 

During my explorations a particular rightness presents itself to me.  Not so long ago I happened upon a quote by one of my favorite authors, Eudora Welty.  She is near the top of yet another list of favorites.  Eudora’s  words seemed spoken for me – to me;  synchronicity at work again that these words would ring true for my art as well as hers:

 

  “ Moving things from anywhere to anywhere…. and that’s what I really love doing – putting things in their best and proper place revealing things at the time that they matter most”.

 

 

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