Farewell to Summer — Susan Greenstein

In this new series that will be in a solo show at 440 Gallery Oct 12- Nov. 19, 2023, my work focuses on the natural gesturing and frequent surprises I find within the trees that serve as my models. Within this series of small paintings, the work takes you through my experience of a year, focusing on transformation of shape and form. Using the fluidity and transparency of watercolor, I’m interested in portraying depth through energetic brushstrokes, areas of brilliant color offset by neutral tones, and a just-enough amount of detail. My free but deliberate touches create a system of unique moments that tell the story of seasons. The goal is a sensitive documentation of the natural world.

My watercolors are a slight departure from my interest in the relationship between nature and man-made structures. I began this yearlong project last fall after examining the work of Arthur Kvarnstrom and his Haiku in Paint series. Kyarnstrom’s work involved distilling his trees into forms of minimal brushstrokes. The early pieces in this collection convey Kvarnstrom motifs. As the project evolved, Haiku in Paint became a doorway for myself, not a way out but the entry to my own voice.

In Autumnal Glow, the composition is pared down into economy of strokes. I frequently ask myself, what can I let go of? The figurative tree reaches upward beyond the top of the picture plane. Delicately dividing the composition, the branches form a tension between the tree and the glowing foliage behind it. I am not aiming to replicate the colors; instead I am more interested in interpreting them. Leaves whisper the last moments of summer green and hint at the beginnings of autumn orange.

One of the most enjoyable aspects of this tree series is that it is just about a moment and my relationship with that specific tree at that time. Just as the season effects change in each tree, I so enjoy seeing the smaller changes that occur day to day and week to week.

Farewell to Summer

Summer has always meant so many things to me. Long stretches of time to fill up with traveling, swimming, reading, daydreaming, seeing friends and family and of course painting. For a number of reasons, this summer offered only a very limited chance for travel opportunities. I took one lovely trip with two other plein air artists and we painted almost constantly. However, since most of my time was spent in NYC, particularly in Brooklyn, I had the rare opportunity of limiting my subject matter to this borough. Although I have often painted in this borough where I live, when provided with this limitation, it actually invited many new painting possibilities. The challenge became revisiting places I had painted at an earlier time and finding new places to paint that I had never considered. For my last summer painting, I chose to paint at Union Street & 8th avenue. I had painted in the same spot many years ago. I was so excited to approach this same location again and see how my interpretation would vary from my first attempt. When I came home, I pulled out the older painting and I was surprised to see how very different these two paintings were next to each other! One was more carefully rendered. The other was freer in the brush strokes used and focused more on the relationship between the trees and the building. Those trees had really grown so much since the last time I had painted at this location! Below are the two paintings of the same location.