Susan Irish

Rarely is the mind quiet when living the art life.

We bring it on ourselves. An artist’s mind is curious and sensitive. We want to know about everything and we want to work out how we feel about it. And share it with the world.

I feel like that little robot with the tagline “need input”, devouring all I can and and craving stimuli. It rumerates around my brain and finds its was to the surface… of the painting. But I don’t paint realism. I translate moods and stories and hopes into my own personal visual code.

“There are places I’ll remember all my life….”

I am fortunate to have a phenomenal memory as if my brain is a video recorder making a little home movie for me. Recalling places and occurrences down to minute details is amusing but also very beneficial as an artist. I hope this skill never wanes.

These recollections become subjects for my paintings portrayed in my own abstracted way. The result may seem as if the memory isn’t quite as clear or maybe the aspects that seemed insignificant at the time are the gems that hold the most value.

All the things that called me as a child: marks, colors, patterns, scraping away layers and carving in textures are the tools I still employ in the technical practice. It is also what makes those things I collect seem precious: the hidden compartments of the magnolia pods, the striations on the rocks long ago stuffed in pockets, skeletonized leaves, rusty bits, feathers, and sticks, bones, and baubles. I’ve moved many times and purged often. I let go of dining room sets and bedroom suites but the cast aside treasures still find their way home.

Almost everyday, I walk the dog around the big pond at the conservation area in my neighborhood. Each visit something different speaks to me. Yellow finches darting about. Roseate Spoonbills! Cranes of all kinds. The light on the water. The path of a snail. I am in awe that I live here so I must capture the beauty somehow.

The teacher in me sees these paintings as a decent illustration of the “abstract painting”. If you thought just a bunch of colors and shapes splashed about, consider these instead. Try to recall your favorite place, not the photographic parts, the sensory ones. What do they look like in that memory.

My mother was an avid gardener who knew the plants by their Latin names. I started gardening after my second child was born. I knew my baby making days were over. Nurturing bulbs and seeds and communing with Mother Nature keeps me connected to my own mother, motherhood, the sacred feminine, and divine goddess.

Abstracts and portraits here were created in the ancient method of encaustic.

Beeswax is melted and used as a binder for the paint pigment. Each patch of color and layer of detail needs to be fused with a heat gun or butane torch.

It is a complicated process but the luminous colors make it so worth it.

The origins of encaustic painting reach back to the ancient Greeks and Egyptians. Traditionally this medium was used to create Fayum Funeral Portraits. Since wax is a preservative and the binder for this painting method, these works have survived through history.