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Sue Carlson
Sue Carlson_Untitled_oil_pencil on linen_Landscape_Minimalism

2021

$2,000
£1,519.05
€1,747.18
CA$2,794.39
A$3,116.06
CHF 1,625.83
MX$38,235.27
NOK 20,694.21
SEK 19,607.32
DKK 13,039.88
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About the Item

Sue Carlson's first artistic training was as a classical musician. European musical language from Baroque to Contemporary is intricate, complex and expressively specific. How could an abstract language like instrumental music, with no words or narrative, come to express emotion through its structure, elements? From the early 20th century onward, the language of abstract painting continues to expand and embody rich, diverse types of expression. It has the potential to be as complex and intimate as western music has been. In her mind, abstract painting is on a developmental trajectory, that it is just beginning to embody its potential. Carlson's understanding of aesthetic expression and structure is fundamentally musical. Geometry and drawing can make meaning by repetition and permutation of “motifs”. Color and form can reflect the experience of sky, light and space. By using only a few pigments or brushes to see how expressive a work can feel through elemental forms and touch. Carlson creates visual compositions, like musical scores to be read left to right or from the center to the edge. This is an aesthetic language existing between music and painting. In 19th-early 20th century nordic landscape painting, the sublime is expressed in paint depicting sky and water. In 2017 Sue began traveling to Scandinavia to see and photograph the sky and compare it to the expression of the sublime in nature in these paintings. Once back home, she made smaller landscape suggestive abstract works which I exhibited in Italy and New York City. In December 2019, having used only the horizontal line as a drawing element in her work for two decades, she began to use the circle as a paired down drawing element. The horizontal line and the circle are as fundamental drawing elements as one can imagine. They are used to organize and structure a wide open painterly space without interfering with or restricting the expansive feeling of a sky. By working in series, she sees subtle differences in permutation, motif, and structure in the painting. The deep space in these paintings is based on watercolors and photographs made of the sky in Iceland and Sweden, during the midnight sun, northern lights and other cloud and light phenomena in the nordic sky. These elements were used to suggest the sublime in 19th century painting and, when paired with simple geometry, the same can happen in the 21st century. Sue Carlson was born in Minneapolis MN . She earned a BA in classical music from a joint program with Case Western Reserve University/ The Cleveland Institute of Music and an MFA in visual art from Cal-Arts. In 1982 she moved to New York City where she continues to live and work. In New York City she had her first solo show at White Columns in 1987 and has exhibited at Rose Burlingham Gallery and Lindsey Brown Gallery. In 2006-2009 she collaborated with artists in Florence, Italy through ArtSEEN magazine where she was a contributing writer and participated in exhibitions in Florence, Bologna and Sardinia. In 2020 she was an artist in residence at Chiassio Perduto in Florence, exhibiting in collaboration with sound artists. She has traveled extensively in Scandinavia and has done research on ancient rune and picture stones in Sweden and Denmark as well as 19th century nordic landscape painting. In 2022 she was an artist in residence at SIM residency in Reykjavik, Iceland and will participate in a runic research project in Denmark in August, 2023.
  • Creator:
    Sue Carlson (American)
  • Creation Year:
    2021
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 16 in (40.64 cm)Width: 12 in (30.48 cm)Depth: 1.75 in (4.45 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Framing:
    Framing Options Available
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    Darien, CT
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU172213124992

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