Susan Danko: Artist's Statement

My paintings are informed by my thoughts and responses to the state of our contemporary natural environment. With them, I examine the power and fragility of nature caught in a state of flux between destruction and renewal.

When formally observed, the environment is full of opposition. Growth is juxtaposed with decomposition, and structure resides in chaos. When extreme weather or natural catastrophe are present, the contrasts are further accentuated. Grappling to reconcile these disparate qualities provides the creative challenge which drives my work. The tension between abstraction and representation, order and chaos, and the natural, versus the artificial are the by-products of my inquiry.

Arising from imagined environmental scenarios, my paintings are constructed from memory and observation. In them, natural phenomena merges with the colored perception of memory to create new realities. Landscapes of beauty and debris in an environment poised between hope and despair.