Suzy Hart
Suzy Hart was born in Devonshire, England in 1956, and spent her childhood in Montreal, Canada and Greenville, SC. Her English father was a veteran of the Second World War. Her French Canadian mother taught French and Latin. Suzy Hart is a master portrait painter, sculptor and illustrator, whose profession as an artist began at age seventeen.
Hart is a Life Member of the Art Students' League of New York, where she studied for several years with Frank Mason and Gustav Rehberger. She has a B.A. in Sculpture and Art History from Montana State University in Bozeman. Her achievements include publication at age eighteen, an exchange with Japan in 1993 to draw portraits, an Award of Excellence from the Portrait Society of America in the 2007 International Portrait Competition, and most recently, a PSA Members Competition award in Pastels in 2010. Suzy Hart has painted portraits of such notables as Joseph Abboud, the award-winning menswear designer, and Doris Haddock, also known as "Granny D", who walked across America at age 90 as an advocate for clean elections.
Her 2-D work has encompassed media ranging from graphite, pastels and oils to the hand-pulled printing arts; stone lithography and etching. Her sculptural work ranges from clay and wood to metals. Hart has taught workshops in Montana and South Carolina, and is an instructor at the Greenville County Museum School of Art.
The artist's company, Wind over Water, markets her illustrations of mythical and allegorical subjects, in a signature genre influenced by the Pre-Raphaelite, Art Nouveau and Surrealist painters and poets. The artist sculpts expressionist statues and creates mixed media paintings that include commentary on current events and realities.
Among colleagues, Suzy Hart is most admired for the unique way she paints eyes. Her likenesses are strikingly true, but in addition, Hart involves her emotional resources to find subtle character and dramatic intensity, applying a wealth of knowledge and sensitivity to create a real and "present" feel in the gaze of the sitter, an evocation of consciousness and intelligence, an effect of aliveness.
