© Susan Christian 2006. All Rights Reserved. Web Design by Pearl Planet Design

About Me...
In 1994, my husband Rick and I went on a long, naive backpacking trip in Southeast Asia.  In Vietnam we looked across Cam Ranh Bay to an island that had the perfect shape, the perfect size,  standing perfectly in the sea, nothing extraneous, an island out of a dream. In the next years I could not stop painting it.  It’s sustained my allegiance with the visual deliciousness of a perfect shape,  with the effrontery of standing so solidly in a liquid world, and with the physical "pleasure for my arm" of drawing the arc. Over time, the mountain’s been transmuted into pyramids and triangles,  and it’s been multiplied into ranges; always, the basic shape keeps some kind of iconic rightness.
Bad Haircut, 2004

Bad Lighting, Macy's Gallery,
Seattle, 2005
In more recent work I’ve begun to draw mouse’s-eye views of human bodies, or curtains, or skirts.  I’ve come indoors. But you will see that the mountain arc insinuates itself under or beside this new activity. It is an organizing principle.
In my painting, rejected areas of painted surface, some of them beautiful, lie under every visible surface. Things that were once the point remain as shadow or texture. Everything good in my life is about reworking a not-quite-good-enough past. Doing things right the first time is not my way. I prefer repair. That mountain, by contrast, is right all the time. Naturally I am drawn to it.

I show my work at Childhood’s End Gallery and Side Door Gallery in Olympia, Washington; at Union Art Cooperative and retrofit.home in Seattle; in group shows nationally; and in France.  I’ve completed several public-art commissions. To no one’s surprise, the later projects are better than the earlier ones.

Except for specific exhibitions, however, I represent myself.  If you’re interested in purchase, do contact me. I can offer smaller inkjet versions of some of these works if sizes require adjustment.