Susan Beck Conaway

“I’m drawn to the potential for expressing the luminosity I perceive in certain forms. My studio is cluttered with all kinds of things I’ve collected that seem to hold the possibility of expressing more than what they are.

I pick certain items and move them about and fiddle with the light source and move them about some more. When I think my arrangement is “there,” I paint it.

I paint in a very traditional way; under painting in monotones to set the values and applying layers of velaturas and transparent glazes. The tricky part is to keep my vision in tact, and the trickiest part is knowing when to stop.

I’m often asked about my titles. They’re important because I think to name something takes the mind down a very specific path and that’s not what I want to do; just the opposite in fact. So, I come up with a title so specific it’s pretty obvious what the painting is about. Sensing that, is my hope that the viewer will have room to wander.”