ISSUE #2: Susan Bennerstrom

My very first purchase of original art was probably 20 years ago from a Northwest painter named Susan Bennerstrom. Her main themes have been the exploration and depiction of light, mainly through oil paint.

She writes, “I don’t think of myself as a realist painter in the currently accepted sense. I work from photographs, which are in themselves abstractions – one step removed from reality. I travel further into abstraction by removing details, shifting things around, changing perspective, exaggerating the quality, color, and direction of light, investing the shadows with greater emotional intensity.”

Her Palouse and Eastern Washington landscapes are serene and vivid. After all these years enjoying her artwork from her own inspiration, I’ve commissioned her to paint a series of our Washington State vineyards, bringing our places to life from her eyes (and palette).