Artist Bio
“The most important part of a painting is the part that is not portrayed.”
Japanese Adage
Susan D. Savage
Born and raised in Santa Rosa, CA, Susan came to Santa Barbara in 1968 with a mindset to pursue a teaching career and complete her undergraduate degree in Studio Art at the University of California Santa Barbara. The late 1960’s at UCSB proved to be part of a unique era and setting for such preparation. Exposure to a variety of unfamiliar media, philosophies of practice, and the constant requirement to venture into these novel realms with very little guidance or structure, established within her a dedicated work ethic and a keen sense of curiosity for the unknown. Experimentation and diligent perceptual practice ultimately joined together to create a strong foundation for both her teaching skills and her art making ventures. After obtaining a secondary teaching credential in Art in 1971 she began teaching in the Santa Barbara public school system that same year. In 1979 she earned her MFA in Painting from UCSB and went on to pursue a variety of teaching and art-related endeavors, and in 2014 finished the final 23 years of her teaching career at Westmont College.
The primary focus in Susan’s teaching practice was to help nurture the individual voices of her students. But it was during her tenure at Westmont College that she found her own voice as a painter. Enticed by the quiet humility and distinct personalities she found in common objects, she was once again drawn to the storytelling potential of still life painting. Holding onto her technical abilities and her love for complexity, she drew inspiration from artists such as Janet Fish, Claudio Bravo, Gordon Cook, David Ligare, and Norman Lundin as she began to explore the visual interactions between reality and the mystery of the metaphysical. Intrigued by the historical symbolism associated with many familiar objects for their metaphorical associations, she worked to reproduced the look of the visible world, but was more interested in capturing something that wasn’t visually in place. Her work thus became an affirmation of what she physically perceived, with a bend toward an eternal, spiritual message.
Now retired from teaching, she continues her investigations in her home studio in Santa Barbara. Her paintings have been exhibited in galleries and museums, both locally and nationally, and her work has also been the focus of several featured articles and publications over the years.