SEATTLE REFINED

Artist of the Week: Susanna Bluhm

AUGUST 06, 2022

by SEATTLE REFINED

Susanna Bluhm is a queer, award-winning landscape painter based in Seattle.

Seattle Refined: How long have you been creating? What mediums do you work with?

Susanna Bluhm: I’ve been making semi-abstract landscapes with weird things my whole life - first, with crayons on paper that my dad brought home from work on the linoleum floor of our kitchen; then, with acrylics my artist uncle gave me when I was 15 years-old; and, now with oil and acrylics. I’ve been working as an artist since my early twenties, so that’s over 20 years! I am very much a painter.

Can you tell us about your artistic process and how the different stages work into it?

My process usually begins with my experience of a place. I take pictures of places, think about what I’m doing there, meditate on what the place means to me, notice what colors and textures I find there, and take stock of what I have brought with me. Then, in my studio, I make a series of paintings loosely based on the pictures I’ve taken of the place. I focus on the unique color palette as well as memories. I use the composition of the photos as a starting point, and add elements of an abstract personal narrative that gets woven through the paintings. Some paintings in the series may appear to be fairly faithful to the pictures that I took, others might look like something entirely different. Usually, it is a mixture of the two.

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