fine arts
UNIVERSAL SOLVENT: SUZANNE HAZLETT AT GAIL SEVERN GALLERY By Elizabeth Youmans
Ethereal and luminescent, Suzanne Hazlett’s encaustic works of art will be on exhibit at the Gail Severn Gallery from February 17th through March 3rd.
Right: Suzanne Hazlett works on "Maelstrom".
“Artist Suzanne Hazlett’s surfaces are like diving into a bowl of material you want to wrap around you. They’re like an old, historic wall or fresco, built of depth of material with a patina that’s almost magical. They have a foggy, luminescent quality,” says Gail Severn, owner of Gail Severn Gallery, the gallery that represents Suzanne. “It’s hard to describe how absolutely gorgeous and complex her surfaces are. She’ll use 30 different shades of colors and nuances and transparent overlay. That sense of depth she gets is very ethereal and totally draws you in. I once had an art professor who said materials matter, and Suzanne has mastered the alchemy of how these materials interact.” Suzanne Hazlett does not simply use materials to create her art, rather her art is inspired by and indelibly intertwined with her materials, all of which come from nature and the earth. Hazlett uses Italian marble, wax, and the crystals of fir trees, which she blends and layers with earth-based pigments to create paintings reminiscent of their organic origins. Hazlett said she is inspired by light and texture and was immediately drawn to the ancient technique of encaustic painting, which has been used by artists from the ancient Egyptians through the Italian Renaissance fresco painters. svpn-mag.com
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