Suzanne Hazlett: Universal Solvent

Gallery Walk February 17th, 5-8pm  • Artist Chat February 18th, 10am

I am inspired by the nuances of texture and light found in nature and in urban environments. All the media I work with come from nature: ground marble, wax, and crystals from the sap of fir trees. The natural ingredients are more appealing to me than synthetics – I love that they come from the earth. I love the luminous quality of encaustic paintings. Some have an obfuscation to them, like that experienced when enveloped by the mystique of fog.

Following the ritual of adding and subtracting what may be twenty or thirty layers of color and material, and when I have captured and expressed the essence of that which has inspired me, my paintings arrive at the eventual visual and tactile end of their journey as I arrive at the end of my personal path to convey the evocative quality of water in all its myriad iterations.

In Universal Solvent, I have sought to capture the translucence of watercolor and the fluidity of tides, currents and ripples. I have also been influenced by water in its frozen forms of ice and snow and by the glaciers I have climbed with my husband. Water figures prominently in the memories and imaginations of all cultures, and my paintings invite the viewers to bring their own narratives.