Growing up in Appalachia, I became interested in the unseen natural systems that surround us. My hyper-intricate paintings employ unconventional methods including pouring, extruding, and removing ink, acrylic paint and mediums to map fantastical psychologically-tinged inner landscapes. The work draws from recurring forms in the natural world, inviting viewers to slow down and participate in making connections between constructions in nature, from satellite imagery to cellular photography. I think about the relationships between these forms, how design and flow in nature correlate and repeat, though often at vastly different scales and rates. I create circumstances with materials in my studio that echo organic processes, reflecting on notions of time, accretion and decay, order and change. For example, I combine materials to create intricate interactions, then cover sections of the paintings with domes that, like microclimates, allow me to keep altering the materials as they cure. Likewise, at various stages I wear away layers of paint to reveal the evidence of previous versions of the work. In this way, I create my own imagined ecosystems that pay homage to the dense and precarious systems that surround us.
I am in awe at how scientists discover systems in nature and employ that knowledge. As an artist I am interested in exploring the spaces in-between that knowledge, the myriad possibilities that cannot all be named or delineated. My work does not so much render landscapes but consider the complex, dense experience of actually being in the landscape. Revealing the tension between the foreignness and the familiarity of the natural world, the paintings reflect this complex, sometimes contradictory relationship, how we anthropomorphize and alter it to suit our needs, and how it persistently weaves its way into our subconscious, speaking to both the unease and connection of our collective experiences.
Bio
Suzanna Fields (b. 1975 Abingdon, VA) lives and works Richmond, VA. She is represented by Quirk Gallery and has exhibited with museums and galleries throughout the Mid-Atlantic and South including: Weatherspoon Museum of Art, Greensboro, NC, Taubman Museum of Art, Roanoke VA, Old Dominion University, Norfolk, VA, University of Southern Mississippi Museum of Art, Hattiesburg, MS, Irvine Contemporary, Washington DC, and the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Virginia Beach, VA. She is the recipient of a Bethesda Painting Award, a Liquitex Purchase Prize and a Trawick Prize finalist. She has been selected for residencies at Mountain Lake Biological Station, Studios at Key West, and Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Her work is in private and public collections including: the Eleanor Wilson Museum, Hollins University, Capital One, Kimpton Hotels, Philip Morris, Retail Data, Bill and Pam Royall, and Shepard and Amanda Fairey. She received her MFA in Painting in 2001 from Virginia Commonwealth University Richmond, VA and her BA in Art and English from Mary Baldwin University in 1997.
Full CV here.
Morphology, detail, 2018.