Artists don’t feel more deeply than other people, but they have a special ability, as a result of instinct, inclination, and training, to communicate their experience of the world to others by making things.
J.F. MYER
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Susan B Wooten grew up and went to college in Oklahoma. Vacations to the Rocky Mountain west and to an old family farm on a spring-fed river in the hills of Arkansas cultivated a sense of reverence for landscape. She earned a Bachelor of Art in Art with Honors in Art from Oklahoma Baptist University. For a period of time following graduation, she worked in a graphic design studio in Oklahoma City. Then in her twenties, Susan moved to the southeast for graduate school where she earned a Master of Fine Arts in Painting and Drawing from Clemson University.
What followed was a lot of life and four decades of work as an art faculty member and administrator at Anderson University. In January 2019, Susan retired as Vice Provost and Senior Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness. In parting, the University’s leadership recognized her as an Emeritus Professor of Art, and she was awarded an Honorary Doctorate.
While working in higher education Susan’s artwork led to her recognition as a South Carolina Art Fellow by the South Carolina Arts Commission, and her work has appeared in over 100 invitational and competitive exhibitions at the state, regional, national, and international levels. Susan has been affiliated with art galleries in Hilton Head and San Francisco, and is currently affiliated with 45 Center Gallery and Studio in Midway, Utah.
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Landscape experience has been the focus of Susan’s work for almost fifty years. Initially approaching landscape through abstraction, she utilized simplification to better understand the structure, space, light, natural space and form of the things she observed. She explored iconic architecture in landscape, mountain scenery, broad vistas, cloud patterns, shadow patterns created by plants, and plant forms themselves.
Since moving to South Carolina , the mountains, plants, and other natural forms of the area have resonated with Susan and often found their way into her artwork. Travels to other parts of the country provide the opportunity to see other landscape forms in new settings.
Whether painting or drawing, Susan remains engaged by the complexity and wonder of nature. On a mountain hike or a stroll through the city, she finds herself paying attention to stunning visual displays. Whether it is a group of red maple leaves, a rocky surface, a grouping of sun-drenched cannas, a stand of irises at the edge of a pond, the pattern of vines across a tree trunk, or the chaos of limbs on a Weeping Cherry tree, the experience produces a sudden and resonant visual awareness. All of these sights arrest her attention. Susan hopes the resulting images may arrest the attention of the viewer; to see, and see specifically, this particular place and these particular things.
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2008-2018
Initially working with graphite pencil, Susan’s focus shifted to a careful study of the specific experience of landscape in drawings. This direction in her work required unusually high levels of skill, discipline, and time to give careful attention to the nuances of shape, form, light, and value with heightened sensitivity to the drawing surface. Working intently on drawing, she could complete about a square inch of drawing in an hour. When she was still employed and could only work a few hours on weekends, in a good year she might complete one or two drawings.
2019-PRESENT
When Susan retired in 2019 her time could be devoted to daily work in her home studio. Along with the drawings, she began exploring color as a primary element through a series of watercolors. In a relatively short period of time she has created a significant body of paintings that maintain the same careful attention to form and surface but also include complex color observations along with her continued interest in shape, form, light and shadow.
