Susan Fleischmann began painting while earning a Masters of Performing Arts in Dance at American University in Washington, DC. For over 20 years, her work has been exhibited throughout the Mid-Atlantic region, including the Corcoran Gallery of Art,, Washington, DC; Emerson Gallery at McLean Project for the Arts, VA; Ellipse and Arlington Art Centers, VA; The Athenaeum, Alexandria, VA; Maryland Federation of Art; and The Pen and Brush in NYC. She has been selected for dozens of juried exhibitions by such prominent curators as Eliza Rathbone (Phillips Collection), David Kiehl (MOMA), Michael Monroe (Renwick), and artists Jacob Kainen, Willem de Looper, and Foon Sham. Her paintings and monotypes are in numerous private and public collections, including Mary’s Center for Maternal and Child Care, Washington, DC; Hitachi America, Arlington, VA; and the International Monetary Fund. Susan Fleischmann lives and works in Charlottesville, VA.
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I believe that abstract, intuitive painting can be deeply structured as well as rhythmically expressionistic. Trained in dance, I am energized by moving through space, keeping aware of this during the art making process.
My paintings are informed by elements of Post Modern dance composition: simplification of form, repetition, fragmentation, ambiguity, and the balanced poetics of Tai Chi. I see the natural world metaphorically, and often paint a layer of language suggestion – imaginary script, thought fragments, simple markings – to leave traces of humanness within the abstraction.
Like a choreographer, I want to determine how space is inhabited. The opposites of light and dark, smooth and textured, vigorous surprise within a calm voice – together these contrasts drive the dynamic form of each piece.
For me, a painting is a poem: its sounds are visual, its meaning is indirectly revealed, and its power is concentrated and personal.
ArtSeen, Inc., Bethesda, MD
Les Yeux du Monde Gallery, Charlottesville, VA
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