Susi Schuele

Artist Statement

Susi Schuele
Artist Statement

My work begins with emotion—a memory, an experience, a passage of scripture, or often a piece of music that stays with me long after the last note fades.

I create abstract watercolor landscapes as a way of translating those intangible experiences into something visual. Working intuitively, I scrape pigment across dry paper and introduce water, brushes, palette knives, and air, allowing color and movement to take the painting somewhere I could not have fully planned. I am interested in that balance between intention and surrender: knowing when to guide the work and when to let watercolor do what only watercolor can do.

Music is deeply intertwined with my process. Many of my paintings carry song titles, creating what I think of as a marriage of art and music. The title offers another doorway into the work, but never dictates what the viewer should see or feel.

Although my paintings often suggest landscapes, they are not paintings of specific places. They are emotional landscapes—built from color, movement, texture, and atmosphere. I want them to feel familiar without being literal, leaving enough space for viewers to bring their own memories and experiences to what they see.

For me, abstraction creates a conversation between artist and viewer. I may know what inspired a painting, but once it leaves my studio, that story is no longer mine alone.

My story begins the painting. Yours completes it.