Susan Brown
SANTA CRUZ, CA
Many of Susan Brown's well known paintings focus on local areas throughout Santa Cruz County, concentrating on places that are not typical “coastal scenes.”
Message
Susan L. Brown is a contemporary artist based in Santa Cruz, California. An artist since childhood, Susan won awards as a student in Ohio, including as Statewide Student Artist at age 12. Moving to California in 1978, she continued studying drawing and painting at College of San Mateo, San Jose State and UC Santa Cruz. In addition, she attended painting workshops taught by leading instructors, including figure studies, acrylic and oil painting technique.
During 2020 and 2021, she studied portraiture painting in depth, in order to better add human emotion to her paintings. Her “Location” series combines geometry, architecture, landscape and portraiture to express special places and situations that are important to her.
Susan has taught painting techniques privately and through various city parks and recreation departments throughout California and teaches painting workshops at Ghost Ranch, NM.
She is featured on an international arts site which describes her art and process in detail: https://zoneonearts.com.au/susan-brown/
Her work appears in private collections; both non and commissioned.
Susan supports the non-profit Homeless Garden Project Store in Santa Cruz, CA, which sells her cards and prints. She donates 50% of all sales.
Some Exhibitions and Awards
* Juried events
- * Biennale Exhibition of Contemporary Art, Florence, Italy, (invited to the 2025 Biennale)
- * Honorable Mention Award; Teravarna Gallery, Landscape Exhibition; March/April 2024
- * Exhibiizone Gallery, "Emptiness" exhibition, Jan. 2024
- * Kooness Art Gallery (online gallery), as of Dec. 2023
- * Pacific Art League Exhibition, Palo Alto, CA, May 2023
- * San Diego Museum of Art, Spring Showcase (juried by Hugh Davies); February-April 2023
- * HMVC Gallery, NYC, Flower Power Exhibition, April, 2023
- * Blitzer Gallery, Santa Cruz, CA; Solo Exhibition; March/April 2023
- * Stems Gallery, Morgan Hill, CA, Feb—April, 2023; (3 month Exhibition)
- * A.I.R. Vallauris Exhibition, Vallauris, France, Oct. 2022
- * Fusion Art gallery, “Spotlight Artist” solo exhibit; Feb. 2022
- * Fusion Art gallery, Santa Fe, NM; (scheduled for Spring 2023)
- * “ShowCase” virtual exhibit, ArtsyShark.com; Spring 2022
- * Corto-Borrone Gallery, Paris, Invitational exhibition, Sei L’Arte; March/April, 2022
- * Pacific Art League 100th Year Celebration Exhibition, Palo Alto, CA; Fall 2022
- * Pacific Art League's 99th Year Celebration Exhibition; “Davenport Evening," chosen as poster; 2021
- * Santa Cruz Art League (santacruzartleague.org); multiple juried exhibits
- * Santa Cruz Open Studios; October, 2021
- “* Powerful Woman,” virtual International Exhibit; Sei L’Arte; 2020
- * California Dreamin’, solo virtual international exhibit, Sei L’Arte, 2019
- * Light/Space/Time Gallery, “International Woman Artists,” 2019
Awards
- Barnes Museum Foundation; Scholarship, June 2024
- * Honorable Mention Award; Teravarna Gallery, Landscape Exhibition; March/April 2024
- * Light/Space/Time Gallery, Special Recognition Award, All Women Exhibition, Jan. 2024
- Important World Artists VI (one of 10 artists sponsored to be in the 2024 volume VI)
- Terravarna Gallery Artist Grant, Nov. 2023
* Barnes Museum Foundation, Scholarship, April 2023
* Honorable Mention; Terravarna Gallery, April 2023
* Featured Artist; ArtsyShark, (Carolyn Edlund, Curator); December, 2022
- * CCI Quick Grant; November, 2022
- *“Artistonish” Magazine; featured artist; August 2022
- *A.I.R. Vallauris artist residency in France; September 2022
Associations
- *NOAP (National Oil and Acrylic Painters Association)
- *San Diego Museum of Art; Artists Guild
- *American Women Painters
- * National Portrait Society
- *Pacific Art League (Palo Alto,CA)
- Santa Cruz Art League
Teaching
- Ghost Ranch, New Mexico, “Landscape Painting in O’Keeffe Country;” Sept, 2019; tbd; 2024
- Recreation Depts., Belmont; Brisbane, CA, 2016–2018
- Private classes; 2016-2024
Statement
I am best described as a colorist who blends reality and imagination; not an exact realist.
In my street scenes and similar "Location" series of paintings I have found a love of solving geometry to create a sense of place, mood, and emotion, emphasizing light, shadows and time of day.
My subjects are not typical of the Monterey Bay area. I don't paint coastal or beach scenes because I feel they are over represented—I choose to show places that are rarely, if ever, seen in paintings. My paintings bring a new life to subjects often thought of as mundane, such as "just a street."
Due to the architectural geometry, aerial perspective and inclusion of portraits and figures, my “Roadways” and “Today’s World” series are especially complex and challenging, including the Taqueria paintings, which involve viewers in scenes of effects of the pandemic. I’ve been told that viewers enjoy the depth and details in these complex paintings, and get more out of them each time they are seen.
By showing different perspectives of the often familiar, as well as places that have been overlooked, like a valley glimpsed only briefly while driving on a highway, my viewers connect their own personal experiences and emotions, whether through nostalgia, or by opening their eyes to places that are new.