Featured Artist for Week of June 29th

[Susan C. Burke]

MY HISTORY: Hi, Everyone, I’m Susan Cafarelli Burke, the featured artist this week. I remember loving art as a child but attended parochial schools that had no money or interest in the arts and so I never really developed my artistic side. After I already finished college, I still was interested in art and so I attended a JR. College and studied graphic arts. I worked in that field for 15 years. Eventually, I got a masters degree in Theology and Art and taught humanities at a Jr. College for 9 years. Four years ago I began a serious study of fine art that led to where I am now, one semester shy of getting a BFA in visual art. I recently joined the Artist –to- Artist website to just connect with other artist and begin putting my attention on promoting and selling art as a full-time career.

RECENT PROJECTS: My art seems to be settling in what has been described as magical realism. My paintings are usually very colorful and playful. And I am gravitating to mostly water mediums. My goal in art is to combine my two loves, that of art and theology. For several years, I have been working on a project about Religions of the Earth sometimes called “Nature Religions.” One of the characteristics of these religions is the distinction between the sacred and the profane. So I have a number of paintings inspired by the Native American Medicine Wheel in the sacred area and four paintings depicting the profane area. I still have four paintings to complete but you can see most of my BFA show (scheduled for November 2, 1009) posted in my albums area of my profile under Religion of the Earth. Some paintings are watercolor, some are oils, and some are serigraphy.

I also have been working a number of Facebook portraits done in acrylic marbling, watercolor, and collage. These are based on my friends’ photos and text posted on Facebook profile pages.

PROCESS: Sometimes I just research free photos on the web or photos I have taken to begin getting reference material for my topic at hand. I start combining images in small black and white sketches. I brainstorm those sketches by creating a number of preliminary layouts that divide the space into a light, dark and medium areas. Then I choose the one I find most interesting and lay that out in a big format on either paper of canvas. Referring back to my sketches often, I begin painting layers of warm and then cool colors in a spontaneous way. I enhance the composition by adding dark or light shapes as needed during and evaluation phase. Near the end, I add any collage.

Thanks you, for reading this. You can see my art posted under my album area in my profile. Susan

[Joe McKenna]

I think ProfaneExcess and ProfaneAbuseofAnimals are both amazingly strong pieces.

Joe McKenna [e-mail]

[Susan C. Burke]

Joe, Thanks for your comments. I love to hear how people respond to my art. I guess the Abuse of Animals is the favorite.