Paintings by Susan Abbott

September 4th – October 10th, 2020

Opening Reception Friday, September 4th, 5-7pm

>> Have a virtual tour <<

‘Night Light’

“Home is where we lay our head, home is where the heart is. In this year of enforced solitude, home is a place both safe and isolating. If we’ve taken our home ground for granted before, now we see it, in all its faults and individuality, as essential. We’re thankful for wherever we shelter in place.

Here in northern New England, our houses are often of a kind: older, made of wood so abundant in our region, small in scale, simple in design. Our homes are sited in the places that define them, whether in small towns, dirt roads, or by the rivers and inlets that once provided New Englanders their livelihoods.

These structures with their no-nonsense design reflect the frugality and modesty of our Vermont and Maine ancestors. But their vibrant colors of pink, turquoise, cobalt, and ochre, painted by current residents or by an artist’s palette (some of the color compositions in these landscapes are observed and others invented) speak of our need for individual style and imagination.

‘Backstreet’

For many winters I’ve visited Hope Town, Bahamas for the pleasure of painting my familiar New England architecture (brought to the island by American Tory settlers in the 1700’s) in a vibrant, tropical setting. When Hurricane Dorian destroyed Hope Town in 2019, these houses were damaged beyond recognition. Now they are being slowly rebuilt board by board, as residents reclaim their home ground.

We understand this difficult rebuilding, because we carry a need for home deep within us. Whether we live in a beach cottage or farmhouse, in a rented room in the city, or a clapboard cape on a dirt road, now more than ever home is our refuge in an uncertain world.”    

–Susan Abbott

Susan Abbott was born in Takoma Park, Maryland, and grew up in this Victorian suburb of Washington, DC. Her parents met as labor organizers in the 1930’s, and they continued to be active in social and environmental causes throughout their lives. Because her father was an artist and graphic designer, there were many art books and supplies at home, and Abbott was drawing and painting from an early age. Her mother was a skilled seamstress, and taught Abbott how to sew, knit and embroider. These hand crafts, and time outdoors playing in the creeks and woods in her neighborhood, were favorite childhood activities that have informed her work as an artist.

‘Newton’s Farm, Early Spring’

Abbott began her formal art studies at fourteen, studying life drawing in the summers under the famed professor Richard D’Arista at American University. She dropped out of high school, and began as a full time student at the Maryland Institute, College of Art, which she selected for its rigorous painting program. At MICA, Abbott focused on figure painting and plein air landscape with Israel Hershberg. She graduated Summa Cum Laude, and two years later received a MFA degree from the Institute’s Hoffberger School of Painting, working with renowned abstract painter Grace Hartigan as her advisor. She went on to study intaglio printmaking in the graduate program at the University of Iowa under Professor Mauricio Lasansky.

Susan Abbott has been working as a professional artist since that time, exhibiting in galleries and museums around the country. Her still life and landscapes have been featured at the Corcoran Gallery of Art,  National Museum of Women in the Arts, Contemporary Art Center of Virginia, Museum of Technology, Hood College, and the Baltimore Museum of Art.  Her painting was included in the show “Objects of Personal Significance”, which toured museums around the United States. She has been a recipient of a Maryland Art Council “Individual Artist Award” and a Vermont Arts Council “Creation Grant”. In 2009 she was one of ten artists selected from an international competition to receive funding to produce a series of paintings about the future of Vermont for the “Art of Action” project. She is an active partner with non-profits in projects that connect art and conservation.

Susan Abbott’s paintings are in many private and corporate collections, including Mead Data Central, the Gund Company, the Federal Home Mortgage Administration, Peat Marwick, and Chittenden Bank. Her commission for Oprah Winfrey was featured on the Oprah Winfrey Show.

In addition to her career as an exhibiting painter, Susan Abbott conducts popular art workshops in Italy, France, India, the Bahamas, and locations around the United States. She lives in northern Vermont.

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