SUSAN LeVAN
“Found Friends is an ode to the many strays and rescues I’ve known in my life. A rich and motley assortment who came in different colors, shapes, and sizes. Each unique and each leaving a signature imprint on my heart. The subject of my work since the mid 1980’s has been animals (mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, an occasional fish), but it’s only in this show and the last at Roby King Gallery that I’ve addressed domestic species. I do portraits of animals in the same way I once did portraits of people – individuated and generalized at the same time. I enjoy the flow of working in series, and focusing on a particular animal for a given exhibit has that feel for me. I’ve always worked in mixed media, and primarily with and on paper. A recent article in Art News (June 10, 2020) about a show of works on paper describes paper as “a disobedient medium…(with) primordial powers… making art out of fragile, resilient paper in some sense means making art about fragility and resilience in the real world.”
