Susan Skilling – from Northwest muck to lovely light

Susan Skilling was raised on the lovely muck of the Northwest School’s color palette, those muted grounds seeded with light.

Hers isn’t a name that leaps to mind when talking about the region’s prominent artists.

For decades she has labored in semi-obscurity, praised when she exhibits but prone to drop out of sight for years on end before surfacing again to startle those who see her work.
It’s classically Northwest in tonality and aspiration, using dim tones to seek celestial things in gouache or opaque watercolor on paper.

Forward momentum comes from pulses of purely abstract form, small shapes aspiring to be squares but distorted by the rhythm of the piece into more fluid configurations.