ARTIST STATEMENT
I love a blank canvas. It’s like putting myself in a box of possibilities and painting my way out. That’s what it feels like. The greatest part of my creative process is allowing myself to be free. No sketches. No color sampling. Just a thought that can change between paint strokes. The only commitment I have to a painting is that I keep going with it until I love it and I feel complete…for the moment.
Interview with artist Susan Woldman, By NOAH BECKER (excerpt)
History shows a strong connection between the natural world and abstraction. Early Ellsworth Kelly leaf drawings and Kelly dreaming into window forms are visions of holy light in nature and nature’s forms. This kind of visual escapism is important in an environment like New York City where an art dealer friend once said to me, “If you want reality, take the L train.”
But making this kind of work is an intuitive experience as is Woldman’s way of working. “I’ve been asked to draw a sketch of what a painting will look like in advance and that’s more challenging to me than doing income taxes – “I work best intuitively,” She says. Woldman lets the excitement of the brush and the movement that happens to propel her through a piece. Much like any of the predominantly male Ab-Ex painters of the past, Woldman creates a much-needed virtuosic moment in painting.
Susan Woldman is a New York City based artist who brings her sensibility as a sculptor into her paintings. Thickly textured impasto surfaces combine with landscape dreamlike imagery to create, depth, movement and light. Inspired first by form and then color, Susan always begins with texture, digging her hands into a thick gel medium to create marks and symbols on the canvas before she adds paint. The recent recipient of the Kuniyoshi Painting Grant, she has studied at The Art Students League, received her MFA from the School of Visual Arts in NYC, studied sculpture in Lacoste, France, and received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College. Susan has exhibited extensively over the years and her work can found in many prominent collections.
RESUME/ Education
Art Students League, New York, NY
M.F.A. Degree School of Visual Arts, New York, NY
B.F.A. Degree Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY
A.A. Degree Simon’s Rock Early College, Grt. Barrington, MA
Recipient of the Kuniyoshi Painting Grant in 2019
Solo Exhibits (selected)
2019 Guy Regal Fine Art, New York, NY
2017 Narthex Gallery, New York, NY
2010 Chelsea Room, New York, NY
2002 Art Encounter, Las Vegas, Nevada
2000 BGH Gallery, Bergamot Station, Santa Monica, CA
1999 The Gallery at the Promenade, Naples, FL
1998 The Gallery, Overland Park, Kansas
1998 Art Avenue Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
1998 Beachwood Museum, Beachwood, Ohio
1997 Rick Wolfryd Gallery, W. Hollywood, Ca
1996 Art Avenue Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
1996 Art Avenue Galleria at Sunset, Las Vegas, Nevada
1996 Marylou’s, New York, NY
1994 Shirley Fitterman Gallery, New York, New York
1992 The Architecture and Design Building, New York, NY
1992 C & A Gallery, New York, NY
1992 Studio Ze, New York, New York
1991 Fendi on 5th Ave, New York, NY
1991 International Design Center, Long Island City, NY
1990 Sachi Kruz, New York, New York
Collections (Selected)
National Museum in Dakar, Senegal, West Africa
Standard Oil Building, Cleveland, Ohio
Hiliard Medical Arts Building, Cleveland, Ohio
Angus Young, ACDC, New York, NY
Omar Viscal, Cleveland Indians, Cleveland, Ohio
Sarah Lawrence College Library, Bronxville, NY
Juvenile Court Building, Public Collection, Cleveland, Ohio
Philip N. Bartos, Private Collection, New York, NY
Group Exhibitions (Selected)
2023 MAC Fine Art Gallery, Fort Lauderdale, FL
2022 Trimper Gallery, Greenwich, CT
2022 MAC Fine Art Gallery, DelRay Beach, FL
2018 Isabella Garrucho Gallery, Greenwich, CT
2015 Phyllis Harriman Mason Gallery, New York, NY
2015 Gallery 52, New York, NY
2011 Beachwood Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
2004 Cheryl Hazan Gallery, New York, NY
2001 Art Avenue Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
2001 Southern Exposure Gallery, W. Palm Beach, FL
2000 The Chase Foundation, Calabasas, CA
1999 Internacional d’Arts Plastiques, Barcelona, Spain
1999 Art Avenue Galleries, Cleveland, Ohio
1998 A.C.E.A., Barcelona, Spain
1998 The Tunnel, New York, New York
1998 Ken Frankel Gallery, Palm Beach, Florida
1997 Gallery Stendhal, New York, NY
1997 Los Angeles Art Expo, Los Angeles, CA
1997 Beachwood Museum, Cleveland, Ohio
1996 Art Avenue Galleries, Cleveland,
Ohio 1996 Shirley Fitterman Gallery, New York, NY
1995 Art Initiatives, New York, NY
1993 The Emerging Collector, New York, NY
1992 National Museum in Dakar, W. Senegal, S.Africa
1992 Vered Gallery, East Hampton, NY
1991 Cork Gallery, Avery Fisher Hall, Lincoln Center,New York, NY
