Featured Artist SuZahn King

Artist SuZahn King’s acrylic paintings capture the grandeur of nature, life and the people she has come to know. See more of her art by visiting this website.

 

 

As a child from the idyllic countryside of Vermont making drawings on dried bract fungi that grows on trees, to the paradise of the coastal jungle of Costa Rica at age seventy three—what a great journey! Of course, there were a few bumps along the way, but still, as they say here, “Puravida.”

 

 

My journey took me to Los Angeles in the seventies where I studied art at LA City College, UCLA, and Otis Art Center of Design. For thirty years, my life’s work involved dealing with those who are not so fortunate.

 

 

My art was influenced by Andrew Wyeth, Ralph Goings, Lucian Freud and National Geographic. By nature, I am a realist and my art is realism. My art focuses, depending on where I live at that time, on the people who live there and on what makes that particular place so wonderful and so interesting. In some cases, I focused on what holds that place together.

 

 

In Los Angeles, I painted the street people and that culture, the graffiti and the boats and ships in the harbor.  Several of my paintings are in the Collection of the City of Los Angeles and one is in the Art Collection of The Ronald Reagan Medical Center at UCLA.

 

 

In Mexico, I painted the people and the life, the fishing boats and the sea.

 

 

In Arizona, where I was honored to win several art contests including Best of Show, I painted the desert, the buildings, the cowboys, the people that made Arizona and of course, the cactus plants.

 

 

In Costa Rica, I paint the flowers and the plants—and there are so many wonderful plants and flowers. Every day, I feel as if I am living in a botanical garden.

 

 

My yard is an extraordinary garden that constantly reveals new surprises. Flowers and plants suddenly pop up that weren’t there yesterday. Unknown things travel through my yard at night that my dogs bark at, and the chickens come in the day, scratching for bugs.

 

 

Living here is like stepping back in a lot of ways to the 1950’s’ in California. Life is tranquil, and the people are amazing. I have had several successful one-woman shows and exhibited in the 2012 National Open Painting, Museo de Arte Costarricense in San Jose, Costa Rica.

 

 

To me, painting is an everyday process, like breathing. It is my breath, my life, my passion. It is my form of yoga and meditation. It is my fascination with every thing around me that is constantly changing. It is me, saying with my art, “Look, look at what is around you, slow down, rejoice. Puravida.”

 

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