Self Portrait | oil on canvas |
50 x 35 cm | 2019
about Suzanne
I am a Whitehorse-based visual artist whose practice is inspired by the human form and the challenges of expressing the human condition. I work in two and three dimensions, painting large-scale works in oil, and building sculptures from materials such as driftwood, wire, textiles and clay.
I have lived in many places, including overseas in Egypt and Zimbabwe, and each new experience has given me an appreciation for the fluid nature of ‘being.’ Originally from northern Ontario, I am most at home in the north and have lived on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dunn First Nation and the Ta’an Kwach’an Council since 2010.
I am currently completing a Masters of Fine Art Degree at Emily Carr University of Art and Design through their Low Residency program, which I will defend in July of 2021.
I am a Whitehorse-based visual artist whose practice is inspired by the human form and the challenges of expressing the human condition. I work in two and three dimensions, painting large-scale works in oil, and building sculptures from materials such as driftwood, wire, textiles and clay.
I have lived in many places, including overseas in Egypt and Zimbabwe, and each new experience has given me an appreciation for the fluid nature of ‘being.’ Originally from northern Ontario, I am most at home in the north and have lived on the traditional territory of the Kwanlin Dunn First Nation and the Ta’an Kwach’an Council since 2010.
I am currently completing a Masters of Fine Art Degree at Emily Carr University of Art and Design through their Low Residency program, which I will defend in July of 2021.
artist's statement
My work is driven by an intense curiosity and desire to understand the human experience; to investigate and contemplate our experience as embodied beings in the contemporary world. I experience the world through the lens of my gender, as daughter, mother, sister, and now grandmother. Influenced by my current role as daughter/witness of elderly parents with dementia, I am particularly preoccupied with identity as related to memory, family and loss. My most recent body of work reflects this current focus.
The process and structure of the paintings draws upon various motifs: the trace, fragment, line, presence and absence. Memories are literally traces—electrochemical pathways that thread their way through the brain, tracing a new path with every recollection. These are expressed through the layered and wandering gesture of the blind contour lines that I employ; lines that are simultaneously accurate and fugitive. These are layered between colour fields of paint and patchwork-like colour fragments. I am drawn to saturated colours and tend towards a maximalist aesthetic, perhaps because it speaks to me of the vibrancy, chaos and complexity of the human subject. The paintings display various levels of finish, I suppose reflecting frustration of the thing that can’t be fully grasped.
My work is driven by an intense curiosity and desire to understand the human experience; to investigate and contemplate our experience as embodied beings in the contemporary world. I experience the world through the lens of my gender, as daughter, mother, sister, and now grandmother. Influenced by my current role as daughter/witness of elderly parents with dementia, I am particularly preoccupied with identity as related to memory, family and loss. My most recent body of work reflects this current focus.
The process and structure of the paintings draws upon various motifs: the trace, fragment, line, presence and absence. Memories are literally traces—electrochemical pathways that thread their way through the brain, tracing a new path with every recollection. These are expressed through the layered and wandering gesture of the blind contour lines that I employ; lines that are simultaneously accurate and fugitive. These are layered between colour fields of paint and patchwork-like colour fragments. I am drawn to saturated colours and tend towards a maximalist aesthetic, perhaps because it speaks to me of the vibrancy, chaos and complexity of the human subject. The paintings display various levels of finish, I suppose reflecting frustration of the thing that can’t be fully grasped.
cv
Here's my cv for those seeking a little more information .
Here's my cv for those seeking a little more information .
| suzanne_paleczny_c.v._2021.pdf |