Suzanne Fierston

Sue is a charming artist who will be exhibiting with us at NIH next spring.

Her Artist Statement:

As a painter, I am constantly drawn to experiment with unusual surfaces and unusual methods of painting. In my most recent series, August Flowers, I developed a complex procedure of layering white latex paintover a transparent acrylic wash—I wanted to emphasize the shape of negative space by giving it brushy, translucent texture. At the sametime, I wanted the characteristic shape of each flower type to be recognizable. I struggled through many prototypes, some unworkable with too many tiny leaf shapes, others with a background painted too opaquely. Ultimately, I began by covering each background with a three-color acrylic wash. Next, I drew the flowers, from life, directly onto the colored surface. I created each white background by painting with latex paint around the flower and leaf shapes. Finally, I went back with acrylics to bring out highlights and define shapes.In developing this complex method I found that thinking through the steps was not enough: I had to paint intensively, day after day, beforeI understood the technique and could make it do what I had imagined.Very much in my mind during this series was the work of Edo period Japanese artist Sakai Hoitsu who painted botanical subjects on two-foldscreens and the expressive, translucent brushwork of Richard Diebenkorn. These are the August flowers of Marblehead, Massachusetts, a seacoast town where gardens edge the narrow streets and fill the tiny spaces between the clapboard houses.