Susanne Belcher
Fine Art
http://www.susannebelcherart.com
http://www.gdcagallery.com/susanne.belcher/
http://www.lacda.com
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherart/
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherphotography/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannebelcher/
Billboard Series
"For several years, I have been drawn to a Billboard that stands on the 101 Freeway next to a Glendale Blvd. sign on the way to downtown Los Angeles (DTLA). My earliest driveby captures inspired the digital photo collage "Love on the 101." I still excite taking photos of it on the go, even watching its original vibrancy gradually desolve into an uninspiring grey screen with little appeal to anyone driving by. However, I continue to see the potential for keeping it alive, found in my newest iterations, “Shocking Pink Park – A Tribute to Elsa Schiaparelli” and “A Scent of Lavender.” And, during my latest trip DTLA, the Billboard finally has a new image on it. So more Billboard iterations coming up!"
"For several years, I have been drawn to a Billboard that stands on the 101 Freeway next to a Glendale Blvd. sign on the way to downtown Los Angeles (DTLA). My earliest driveby captures inspired the digital photo collage "Love on the 101." I still excite taking photos of it on the go, even watching its original vibrancy gradually desolve into an uninspiring grey screen with little appeal to anyone driving by. However, I continue to see the potential for keeping it alive, found in my newest iterations, “Shocking Pink Park – A Tribute to Elsa Schiaparelli” and “A Scent of Lavender.” And, during my latest trip DTLA, the Billboard finally has a new image on it. So more Billboard iterations coming up!"
Love On The 101
A Scent Of Lavender
Artists Statement
As an experimental, mixed media semi-abstract artist and photographer, there is nothing more exhilarating to me than tapping into what I call “a collective stream of consciousness,” a place where unlimited narrative possibilities exist. A place to let go and allow the work to take on a life of its own.
My process is driven by something that might grab me in the moment or resonates over time. The news of an oil spill and watching birds in flight overhead. The wonder of a beautiful rose in my garden. A glitch on the tv screen, buildings, palm trees, graffiti, billboards blurred as I drive by. Nature and my desire to preserve and pay homage to it, captured in a visual blink or taking static and dynamic photos of our ever-evolving California landscape, passions the selected series of diverse work you see here. I let my images play with me on paper, canvas, the computer, overlaying and subtracting until the piece speaks to me, often incorporating my own shadow image as both an observer and participant in the process.
As an experimental, mixed media semi-abstract artist and photographer, there is nothing more exhilarating to me than tapping into what I call “a collective stream of consciousness,” a place where unlimited narrative possibilities exist. A place to let go and allow the work to take on a life of its own.
My process is driven by something that might grab me in the moment or resonates over time. The news of an oil spill and watching birds in flight overhead. The wonder of a beautiful rose in my garden. A glitch on the tv screen, buildings, palm trees, graffiti, billboards blurred as I drive by. Nature and my desire to preserve and pay homage to it, captured in a visual blink or taking static and dynamic photos of our ever-evolving California landscape, passions the selected series of diverse work you see here. I let my images play with me on paper, canvas, the computer, overlaying and subtracting until the piece speaks to me, often incorporating my own shadow image as both an observer and participant in the process.
Shocking Pink Park
L.A. Glitches
(Digital Photo Collages)
A California native, Los Angeles is in my DNA. Moving along the streets and freeways of the city, my photographs taken of the blurred and static landscapes as I whizz by, reflect and capture my love affair of the city’s vibrancy and spirit, its essence and pulse. The magic comes when I begin to meld these images together. The freeway blurs, glitches, building facades, palm trees, graffiti, window reflections, billboards, things unusual became my eurythmic narratives of the L.A. Landscape. Colorful, uplifting, mood enhancing abstractions that remind me of how so many of us actually take in the world around us as we move through life looking down instead of around and up.
Whizzing By III
Whizzing By I
Whizzing By II
Wings of Destiny Series
(Mixed Media Works on Canvas)
My reverence for Mother Nature has always been a primary inspiration for my work from the first applications of my paint brush that focused on the landscapes of the Southwest without the intrusion of humans. The growing implications of climate change and the toll being taken on our oceans, wildlands and wildlife, informed this series. Watching wild birds nesting online ignited a passion in me after realizing how hard they worked to raise their young, and the perils and hardships they faced doing it.
My attachment to these nests continued when I realized that many of the birds I had observed would be migrating South to areas affected by the former Gulf of Mexico Oil spill, and recognizing that they might never return. I wanted to draw viewers into the work with peaceful, almost poetic facades, casting my own shadow image onto the canvas as both an observer as well as a participant. The work is meant to honor the perilous journey of flight and convey that life and beauty are fragile and transitory.
As Above So Below
Shore Watch
SUSANNE BELCHER is an award-winning native California mixed media, semi-abstract artist and photographer. Exposed to the arts in her early years by her father, an artist by avocation, it would be many years and professions before she embraced her own artistic talent. Guided by her desire for experimentation, Susanne’s portfolio is vast in several mediums including painting, collage and photography. When her paint brush became the lens of a camera or iPhone, snapping photos on the go became her obsession. She often incorporates her own shadow image into her works that has become one of her recognized signatures. All of her work continues to reflect her background in psychology, love of nature and the California scene, interest in architecture and things unusual. Her images, always compelling, minimal and complex, retain a consistent emotional narrative that is unique, sophisticated and often surreal and mysterious.
Her innate ability to distill images through layers of reduction and compilation in mixed media was easily translated into her digital photo collages.
The images displayed present a semi-evolutionary collection of Susanne’s artistic journey through time. A montage of some of her earlier creations juxtaposed with her striking digital photos and photo collages that reflect “her love affair with the city, capturing its vibrancy and spirit, its essence and pulse.”
Susanne has exhibited in Germany and galleries throughout California in both solo, group and invitational shows as well as the Santa Paula Art and California Heritage Museums. Her work is held in both private and corporate collections in Europe and the U.S. Selections of her work have been featured in several publications including ArtQuench, Art&Beyond, Huffington Post, Southwest Art Magazine, Andra F. Stanton’s book, “How Art Heals,” as well as in the film “Magnum Opus” with international distribution. She is represented by Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art galleries. Susanne is an active member of IAA/USA, Women Painters West, Thousand Oaks Art Association, California Art League, The Fine Arts Club of Pasadena, and currently sits on the Board of Collage Artists of America. She is also co-author of an art/nature/essay book “Looking for 527” that follows the journey of a Yellowstone Alpha Wolf killed in the first Montana wolf hunt in 2009 (available on Amazon.com).
Visit www.susannebelcherart.com www.gdcagallery.com/susanne-belcher/ and www.lacda.com
Her innate ability to distill images through layers of reduction and compilation in mixed media was easily translated into her digital photo collages.
The images displayed present a semi-evolutionary collection of Susanne’s artistic journey through time. A montage of some of her earlier creations juxtaposed with her striking digital photos and photo collages that reflect “her love affair with the city, capturing its vibrancy and spirit, its essence and pulse.”
Susanne has exhibited in Germany and galleries throughout California in both solo, group and invitational shows as well as the Santa Paula Art and California Heritage Museums. Her work is held in both private and corporate collections in Europe and the U.S. Selections of her work have been featured in several publications including ArtQuench, Art&Beyond, Huffington Post, Southwest Art Magazine, Andra F. Stanton’s book, “How Art Heals,” as well as in the film “Magnum Opus” with international distribution. She is represented by Gloria Delson Contemporary Arts and Los Angeles Center for Digital Art galleries. Susanne is an active member of IAA/USA, Women Painters West, Thousand Oaks Art Association, California Art League, The Fine Arts Club of Pasadena, and currently sits on the Board of Collage Artists of America. She is also co-author of an art/nature/essay book “Looking for 527” that follows the journey of a Yellowstone Alpha Wolf killed in the first Montana wolf hunt in 2009 (available on Amazon.com).
Visit www.susannebelcherart.com www.gdcagallery.com/susanne-belcher/ and www.lacda.com
Shore Watch II
Wings Of Destiny I
Abstract Architectural Mixed Media work on Canvas
If there is such a thing as past lives, I think I must have been an architect. My very first collages came from using images found in Architectural Digest, cut out and glued over unsuccessful watercolors. They were very surreal and architecturally engaging. The work was so intuitive. My art instructor at the time, took me aside and told me that it was very sophisticated work and that it was what I should be doing.
It stuck with me. I found my passion in collage that has continued to inform all my work. Architectural elements, ongoing symbols of windows, stairways, buildings remain layered in my subconscious. A stairway memory from early childhood, windows and space to allow me to breath. Night and darkness, stairways and passageways, illuminated windows at night, hold imaginings and mysteries to uncover, and like a voyeur in this piece, made me ponder the lives and activities unfolding behind the unseen.
A Solitary View
Absence of Words series M/M work on Canvas
“Hidden In Pattern” and “Networking in Cyberspace” are two pieces selected from a larger series called “The Absence of Words.” Inspired by starting to read the words on the pages I was tearing up to be used in my work, it suddenly dawned on me during my process, that certain words were found missing among the definitions. Why? Because they hadn’t been spoken or used in a sentence, or created yet. That revelation ignited an entire new meaning to the work in this series and gave me a title. Doing some research, I found that not only multiple words are added multiple times a year in dictionaries, but even the definitions of existing words are also revised to reflect the usages of the time. Portions of some of the torn pages of the dictionary I used in my paintings are revealed while others lie hidden entirely beneath the overlays of medium and collage.
Hidden In Pattern
Networking In Cyberspace
Secrets In The Garden
My floral photo collages are an ongoing series that began when I started photographing the beautiful, floral abundance in my own garden along with bouquets given to me at special times. Many of my images found their way to my heart. Each flower, each image, seemed to yearn to tell me a secret they were holding dear within their petals. But their narratives didn’t reveal themselves until I captured a multitude of glitches on a tv screen. I began layering, combining, photo collaging them together. I experimented with several different substrates including canvas to bring them alive. Nothing worked until I installed them on Acrylic Glass.
Their stories became magical, dreamlike, spiritual, sensual and romantic along with a bit of vanity, shyness and playfulness. There is always more than meets the eye when viewing the beauty that surrounds us and how little we know about the ecosystem and secrets that are held within. I have been fascinated by the studies done with plants and revelations of the conversations that take place in the plant world that are beyond human senses. I encourage the imagination of my viewers to venture deeper the next time you’re in your own garden or enjoying a hike. You might even be lucky enough to hear the chatter taking place right beneath your feet.
The Prom Queen
Tutu Florina
Constant Comment
Bathed In Light
Reflections Of Flora
Susanne Belcher
Fine Art
http://www.susannebelcherart.com
http://www.gdcagallery.com/susanne.belcher/
http://www.lacda.com
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherart/
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherphotography/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannebelcher/
Fine Art
http://www.susannebelcherart.com
http://www.gdcagallery.com/susanne.belcher/
http://www.lacda.com
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherart/
http://www.Instagram.com/susannebelcherphotography/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/susannebelcher/