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Susan’s mission as an artist is to bring joy to others
through the color and emotional connection of her images. She believes the
human spirit requires care and feeding, and that art provides an essential
part of that nourishment. Therefore she strives to create nourishing
paintings. Her painting has been influenced by Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse,
Diebenkorn, and Whistler, among others. She finds inspiration in their
brilliant and emotional use of color, and also their ability to evoke a
sense of place and transport the viewer there. Susan is a landscape
painter living and working in Sausalito, California. She grew up in New
York graduating from Barnard College in 1980. She went on to earn an M.A.
in Art History from Hunter College while becoming increasingly focused on
painting. She also studied painting at the Art Students League and the
School of Visual Arts in New York City, and spent five summers at Kate
Millett's Art Colony. She and her partner lived in Philadelphia before
moving to San Francisco in 1995, and to Sausalito in 2001. |
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Susan paints with both oils and watercolors. In her oils she strives to create a strong sense of place and to communicate her response to the changing architecture of cities and the beauty of California landscapes. She uses a thick impasto technique, applying paint with both palette knife and brushes to achieve an impressionistic blend of color and lively surface texture. Her watercolors are light-filled local scenes and still lifes in an airy ink and wash technique. Ms. Sternau has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and the San Francisco Bay Area. She had done numerous commissions and her work is in many private collections. She has also published book illustrations for Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection, and is the author of four books on art and architecture: Matisse, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Museums. Susan and her commissioned House Portraits were the topic of a feature article in the Noe Valley Voice in 1998. Her San Francisco-themed art was reproduced on hundreds of T-shirts for the 2003 San Francisco FrontRunners Pride Run. She also recently painted at a number of local events at Macy’s sponsored by Oprah Magazine. Susan also teaches painting and drawing to private students and groups. She has been represented by the Heartful Art Gallery in Sausalito and SausalitoArtGalleries.com. |
