Suzy Holt, Visual Artist
ARTIST'S STATEMENT
In 2004 I retired from my career and commenced to make art, a return to my youthful study and endeavor. I am in the process of rediscovering myself as an artist and rebuilding the skills inherent in any mature artist's expression of the world s/he seeks to communicate to the viewer.
The Burnt Gulch Revelation series required photographic presentation because I wanted to share with the viewer the beauty I was seeing in the devastated forests and watershed as they recovered. Having tracked this recovery regularly since the Cave Gulch fire in 2000, there has been one surprise and astounding image after another. Unbelievable to others if painted, I resorted to the camera, not my usual medium. While from time to time I enjoy exploring and playing with digital photographic images, I am wary of letting it divert me from my desire to paint. The Burnt Gulch Painting series is my emotional memory of the fire and especially the first spring that followed.
While some paintings are literal to the appearance of the burned, others attempt to convey the passion, surprise, pain and delight that followed. Montana Landscapes share my sense of the gentle nature of the environment surrounding Helena and the serenity I find in it. These paintings are frequently very quiet, with subtle color that seeks to be fairly precise. Other times it is the surprise and drama of color and shadows at the end of day that charm me. Paintings in this series grow year after year and painting "plein aire" with artist friends is an annual summer delight.
Desert Sojourn paintings followed an intense few weeks of drawing in southern Arizona the winter of 2009, followed by an equally intense period of painting in my Helena studio. The strange and fascinating forms of the desert landscape, together with a different quality to the light of day and night, was challenging and rewarding to tackle.
Drawings were a product of the weeks in Arizona, studying both the desert and playing with the figure. The figures are explorations of an approach I especially enjoyed many years ago and feels refreshing to begin again.
CURRENT EXHIBITIONS - 2009
May 29 - June 17 - Holter Museum of Art, Helena, MT
June 19 - 16th Annual Holter Art Auction, Great Northern Hotel, Helena, MT
Gentle Montana
July 2 - 29, 2009 Myrna Loy Center Gallery, Helena, MT
Ocotillo Skylines
PAST EXHIBITIONS
- Burnt Gulch Revelations
- Holter Museum of Art - Art Auction 2008
