Susan Friedman

Painting since 2006, my art education includes coursework at the Toronto School of Art, Haliburton School of the Arts, and many workshops throughout Ontario. After a full career in medicine, I appreciate being able to now focus on creating art full-time.

From simple gestures to weathered walls, I am inspired by the beauty of the every day. Figurative abstraction is my current passion. I start by creating mixed media grounds composed of prepared and found papers, as well as recycled artwork. Choosing an image from either my life drawing sketches or personal photos, I incorporate it into the collage. Integrating figures into these textured, layered backgrounds is my way of saying: we are our contexts; we are of our worlds, all of us connected, with responsibilities to each other and the worlds we inhabit. I move from the chaos of the collage to calm imagery, loving the dance between intention and spontaneity that allows each painting to come into its own.