Suzanne Truman
Artist Statement
My work is concerned with series and structure, and interpreting colors, patterns and textures from nature – including objects eroded and decayed by nature – onto constructed surfaces in a complex minimal layering of oil paint with wax medium or encaustic paint. “Color and Light” is a recent installation f handmade wooden boxes that mimic elements of objects collected from travels in the Northern Rockies, Desert Southwest and Latin America. My pieces are meant to convey an influence from nature, and the juxtaposition of visual elements distilled from the natural world combined with modern-world constructions.
“Ripple” is constructed of 160 discs floating off the wall, and focuses on the subtle color shifts and patens of ripples. I am interested in percept and the quick formation of visual information in the brain before the viewer is entirely conscious of it. I have attempted to enhance the perception of movement by subtly projecting the shapes in these series at varying distances from the wall. Painted tonal shifts and the shifting levels of each piece casting overlapping soft shadows also enhance the suggestions of movement. I have painted a large rectangle behind the “Ripple” series with the intention of creating a wall installation that at first view may appear to a painting of circles, rather than panted circular objects.
My interests in traveling and being influenced by the strong sense of place I feel in the wide-open spaces of American West most inform my work. While painting, I strive to use the elements of an additive and subtractive process in a harmonious way to evoke a metaphorical aspect of the natural world. As the surface evolves, I sand, scrape and scribe back into the painted strata. By intuitively responding to emerging imagery, my intent is to reveal minimal abstractions suggestive of the cumulative effects of the natural events that shape the land, and objects therein, over time. The exterior landscape thus fuels my interior landscape and these paintings serve as essences of “place” that cannot by explicitly represented. In turn, I hope they stir the “interior landscape” of the viewer and inspire their own sense of visual exploration.