Susan Stillman

Susan Stillman is a contemporary American painter whose landscape works explore the interplay of light and its transformation. Her paintings reflect the ambiance of her suburban neighborhood as well as scenes from her extensive travels, capturing fleeting moments of atmospheric change.

Stillman earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design and an MFA from Brooklyn College. She also spent a year in Rome studying painting through RISD’s European Honors Program. A dedicated educator, she has taught at Parsons School of Design since 1983.

Her work has been featured in prominent publications such as The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Stillman was chosen to illustrate a special centennial edition of James Joyce’s Ulysses and collaborated with writer Pete Hamill on illustrations for The Invisible City: A New York Sketchbook, now in the collection of the Museum of the City of New York.

Stillman's paintings have been shown at notable galleries including George Billis Gallery (NY), George Davis Gallery (Savannah, GA), Silvermine Galleries (CT), NY Equity Gallery, and the Garrison Art Center.
She lives and works in White Plains, NY.


Artist Statement

The landscape I see every day shapes my work in paint. The views from my windows high on a hill, and my daily walks through all seasons fuel my fascination with light and its transformative effect on color and tone. Though intimately familiar with this terrain, I approach it with the curiosity and wonder of a traveler, striving to see it anew every time.

Series evolve as I revisit images that have left an impression in my memory. The scale of the work has an impact on how the images are perceived. Larger paintings invite the viewer to enter the space created, and smaller-scale work feels fragmentary, echoing the sense of moving through the landscape noticing flashes of color on the periphery. Roughened textures on the substrates allow color to peek through and animate the surface, inspired by ancient, frescoed walls encountered in Italy.

An absence of the figure is deliberate, disallowing any imposition of narrative and leaving the focus entirely on the moment captured and its specific qualities of light, color, and tonal saturation.


https://susanstillmanfineart.com/