Award winning artist, Susan J. Klein, was born in Dayton, Ohio, and now lives in Sarasota, Florida. She has been painting and exhibiting for over thirty years, consistently winning awards and recognition. After receiving a masters of fine arts degree from Kent State University, she taught 2-D design and drawing classes at Youngstown State University and the University of Akron while continuing her painting career. During this time she also owned and directed The Steel Street Experimental Gallery in Youngstown, Ohio. Moving to Florida, in 1990, she rejoiced in her adopted state and devoted herself to painting and discovered the wonders of the Florida landscape in the imagery at Myakka River State Park and the beaches of the “Suncoast.” Trips to Europe and the American Southwest, along with five National Park artist-in-residencies, have enriched and expanded her oeuvre. Her painting, “Clay Gully Creek,” was selected to be exhibited at the American Embassy in Rome, Italy, during 2001-2004; and the painting, “Resurrection Fern” was displayed in Sofia, Bulgaria (2008-2010), both as part of the United States Department of State Art-in-Embassies program. Other fine paintings are included in prestigious public and private collections, nationally and internationally.
The artist states: Travel to different landscapes excites my senses and imagination and re-ignites my creative spirit. For me each painting is special and specific to a given place and time. My work is highly detailed and time consuming. I am obsessed with giving shape to the painting’s content from the first moment that I become aware of its presence within the landscape; that is, for me the composition of the painting and its meaning are there in the landscape. I isolate and make the composition clearly visible with a sketch. I then work from the shorthand of the sketch. As I work in the studio the sketch conveys the necessary creative memories through the energy of the drawn line–memories of how that place and that particular configuration of trees and sky, rocks, cliffs, shadows, water and grass, along with breezes and wild, native fragrances, made me feel–and there I find my content. I paint to the content, picking and choosing whichever bit of technical magic or expressive color will get me there. “There” being the complete and clearly defined individual statement of each wonderfully unique painting.
Website
http://mysite.verizon.net/sjajkl
