September 4-26, 2015

Lay of the Land

Three mountains that were part of the Freedman Land project served as the subject of these paintings. Susan Grace painted “plein air” in West Virginia in front of mountains that evoke the notions of release and of freedom. Grace is interested in both the cool “field painting” aspect of the mountains that can lean towards a repetitive flat pattern and, conversely, she is also interested in how the mountains stir deep emotions. Moving through these mountains creates in us an interior landscape that draws from us aspects of challenge, intimacy and something therapeutic. The two opposing approaches, the landscape in its realistic perspective and the flat abstract repetitiveness, present the same dichotomy that challenges Grace in picture making. The mountains are the perfect paradigm for the dilemma she has set herself as a contemporary painter. Committed to working with paint on a flat surface, Grace’s eyes are trained to accept the “medium is the message.” The dilemma for her is to rectify the urge to celebrate the “flat rectangle” of the two dimensional canvas and the urge to forge forms and to allow those forms in turn to frame a story.

In designing the composition, Grace might overlay the composition with an armature of a grid or a perhaps a large wedge that bisects the picture plane. These compositional devices can be used to either strengthen the “pattern-like” aspects of the rolling hills or to strengthen illusionistic space. The four edges of the canvas play an important role in inventing a composition. How to keep the viewer’s eye from sliding off the edge? How to keep the eye moving and making additional discoveries over time? Here a nod to real space: here a mark that draws attention to the surface. Grace’s work involves a dichotomy: is the picture plane flat or spatial? She works to keep these two divergent paths alive.

Susan Grace earned her Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Chicago and a certificate in Painting and Drawing from the National Academy School of Fine Art in New York City as well as completing a course of study at the Art Student’s League in New York City. She has exhibited her work in Washington DC, Virginia, and London, England.

Grace’s current works are large-format oils that capture the landscape of the Appalachian Mountains and what they offer us in the beauty of their abstracted forms and their healing qualities. Her influences are her teacher, Robert Beauchamp, who pushed the “plasticity” of a painting, which he in turn learned from his teacher, Hans Hoffman. Grace is a recipient of the 2015 Workhouse Arts Center Director’s Collection that “highlights talented Workhouse artists who stand out for craftsmanship and an outstanding creative practice that pushes artwork outside the norm.” She is currently a Resident Artist in the Workhouse Arts Center in Lorton, Virginia, a nonprofit art organization consisting of a group of over 70 visual artists.