Susan Christensen
September 5 – 28, 2019
First Thursday: September 5, 5 – 8 pm
Artist’s Reception: September 14, 2 – 4pm

From the artist:
Over the months spent creating the drawings and paintings for this exhibit, I’ve been surprised again and again by how deeply my Mother’s consistent cultivation of her child’s imagination still influences me. Her encouragement and, at times, goading have certainly shaped the image maker I am today.

This body of work developed basically split into two ‘camps’. Mother’s story, my appreciation of who she was as her younger self and recollections of our shared story are generally rendered in softer colors with sparer details. Alongside these works of memory I give tribute to Mother’s indelible mark on my congenitally vivid imagination. These homages are highly detailed images in stronger colors with stranger themes: fantastic creatures, spirit and animal companions, figures with multiple faces, mask wearers, shamans. They do not ‘reproduce the visible’ rather they ‘make visible’ the realms of my imagination, to borrow from Paul Klee’s thought about Art and its purpose.

Mother – who is an artist herself but modestly never claims to be more than a crafter – named me Artist even before I became aware of that calling in myself. What a lifelong gift, this recognition. I hope these visual tales of mine provide a conduit worthy of transmitting her beneficence to all who engage with them.
-Susan J. Christensen< August, 2019