SUZANNE LAURA KAMMIN
Statement
“Like an evaporated mirage,
like a tree of gold in a dream,
like a magic show in the midst of a crowd -
you run blind after what is unreal.
”
My paintings are informed by Buddhist emptiness teachings which posit that nothing possesses inherent existence; everything is dependent on its parts, on causes and conditions and on the mind. This concept plays out in my work through the reciprocation between the background and foreground and in the interconnectedness of the work’s elements. Layers, lines and shapes are distinct but not one more important than another. Through the use of cropping and carefully chosen color relationships, the space in my paintings appears simultaneously deep and flat. I allow the paint to be expressionistic in some areas and controlled in others. These seemingly contradictory aspects of the work refer to non-duality. I complete the connection with a visual give and take where opposite forces are interdependent.
My work often raises the question of how it was made and I remain enigmatic in my response. How the work is created, I want to remain a mystery.
Bio
Suzanne was born in New York City and grew up in Manhattan and Toronto, Canada. She received her BFA in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and her MFA in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute and studied painting abroad at the National College of Art and Design in Dublin, Ireland while an undergraduate and at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver at the graduate level. She is a two-time recipient of a grant from the Adolph and Esther Gottlieb Foundation.
Suzanne currently serves as an assistant professor in the Department of Visual Art and Design at Caldwell University. She served for seventeen years as a Part-Time Assistant Professor at Parsons School of Design. Suzanne began her teaching career as a studio instructor at the Anne Tanenbaum Gallery School of the Art Gallery of Ontario where she taught painting and drawing, worked to develop an intensive studio program for teenagers and helped to redesign the entire curriculum for the gallery school. In addition, Suzanne taught painting at the Yard School of Art at the Montclair Art Museum and has also been a visiting artist at Pratt Institute and Roger Williams University. Suzanne has served as a guest curator at the Painting Center where she also served for four years as a member of the gallery. She serves as the director of the Mueller Gallery at Caldwell University where she curates three exhibitions each year and has curated shows at Kathryn Markel Fine Art where she has also had two solo exhibitions.
Suzanne currently lives and works in Plainfield, NJ and exhibits her work internationally. Her work is included in private, corporate and museum collections.