Suzanne Hoffman

I am a psychologist with a busy professional life….and a passion for art-making.  A self-taught artist, I work primarily in oils and do both traditional plein air paintings and mixed media abstracts.  I begin the landscapes on location where I try to capture a “sense of place”, a feel for the natural world rather than an exact likeness.  The abstracts are more “intuitive”, begun with no pre-conceived idea of where the painting will go.  Using dense oil pigments, cold wax medium, printmaking tools and a variety of implements, I build up multiple layers of paint and wax and then “subtract” the paint, allowing what’s underneath to disappear and re-emerge in new form.  I love the sense of magic as I find what emerges from all this layering. What shows up inside, underneath, in between, beyond, toward?  What’s happening in those little moments of experience? Where are we going? What does the painting need, want to say?  I’m asking the same questions that I ask in my psychotherapy practice...totally fun.