The Wild and Wonderful

Artist Statement
Encounters with wild animals have been the focus of my work for many years. Human beings and animals in the wild seem to exist in parallel universes, but now and again we glimpse one another and our otherwise separate existences overlap. For me there is always a frisson of excitement when this occurs, and my work is an expression of this frozen moment and its inherent wonder, humility, delight, mystery, recognition.
The Grizzly Bears are simply amazing. I was unprepared for the scale of them; their speed and grace; their playfulness; their palpable intelligence and complex social interactions. I mean to honor these qualities, and to capture both the essence of “bearness” as well as the particularity of individuals.
I’ve always been interested in mark making, surface, color, experimentation, series, and both the ephemeral and gritty qualities of collage and paper. An article in Art News (6/10/2020) describes paper as “a disobedient medium with primordial powers... making art out of fragile, resilient paper in some sense means making art about fragility and resilience in the real world.”
Susan LeVan January 2023