Susan Marion

Susan Marion

bobapac@aol.com

 (719) 687-9323

   46 Oxford Ter, Florissant, CO

Susan D. Marion has been painting exclusively in watercolor for 45 years. Her style is representation/realistic, featuring florals, landscapes, wildlife, and still life. Sue's watercolor paintings are characterized by striking, contrasting light and shadows and bright, saturated colors. Her work strongly conveys a sense of place, usually, a place of sunlight and warmth.

After attending Pennsylvania's Kutztown University Bachelor of Fine Arts program, Sue went on to a long career in graphic design. Over the years, she continued painting and exhibiting at various local venues.

Her recent exhibits have included the Boulder Street Gallery, Cottonwood Fine Arts Center, Commonwheel Gallery, and Pikes Peak Library District sites in Colorado Springs, as well as the Rampart Range Library and Pikes Peak Credit Union in Woodland Park. She participates regularly in the Mountain Arts Festival (Woodland Park), Canvases in the Canon (Colorado Springs) and other regional art festivals and exhibitions.

Sue describes painting in watercolor as "the paradox of very carefully planned spontaneity...like golf, getting to your objective with the fewest possible strokes..." The "unforgiving" nature of watercolor requires the artist to "think ten steps ahead" before putting brush to paper. Despite its reputation for being a challenging medium, watercolor is the only medium Sue has used, and she finds it the most natural medium for her.

A member of the Colorado Springs Art Guild, Pikes Peak Watercolor Society, and the Mountain Artists in Woodland Park, Sue works out of her home/studio in Florissant, inspired by the surrounding mountains and her high-altitude perennial garden.

Through artwork, Sue seeks to convey the sensory and emotional experience of being with the subjects she paints. For her, paintings are a meditation on the subject of the piece, an archive of her presence with that subject, and an invitation to the the viewer to share that experience.