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Artist Portfolio Sue Swerdlow
Artist Portfolio Sue Swerdlow
Artist Portfolio
| Sue Swerdlow |
| Written by Sophia V. Schweitzer |
| January 08, 2007 |
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Passion in Color Talking with Sue Swerdlow is like moving inside her art and tasting its bold vivaciousness. She gestures, cries, paces from painting to painting to emphasize a color or technique, and then, in one abrupt movement, throws herself at you and asks pointedly: “Do you get it? You get what I mean? My art is alive!” She’s absolutely right. Her Polynesia-inspired canvasses sing with passion; they make you happy that you yourself are alive. They reveal respect and love for the complex Hawaiian culture that inspires the ultra-enthusiastic Swerdlow. And, they are lots of fun. “As an artist, I want to communicate,” Swerdlow exclaims. “So you don’t just find a painting in my gallery; you find my experience in it. Everything has a life story.” What Swerdlow creates is, in fact, a unique interpretation of exotic island life, with an emphasis on human figures and the vibrant, bright colors of the tropics. “Everything about Hawai'i interests me,” she says. “I find the Polynesians exquisite. Their features remind me of art deco sculptures. You can see why Gauguin loved them so much. There is nothing like Hawai‘i for artists, and you can’t ever complain that there is nothing to paint here. The colors, the shapes, the intense profusion, the pureness of lines -- it’s all captivating. I paint many other things and many other cultures, but I always return to Polynesia.” As for the life story within her creations, it starts with how she ended up in Hawai‘i. This was not through any deliberate choice, but occurred by what can only be called a dropout fluke, during that impossible era of the late 1960s, when California rocked between acid, freedom, and the Vietnam War. Her husband Mike played in a rock and roll band in Santa Cruz until one day the band’s drummer said, “Let’s get out of here.” No one knew the first thing about island life. But a Hawaiian elder invited the Swerdlows to the Big Island, where they became caretakers of a 250-acre junglescape in the Puna district, Kahuwai, surrounded by ancient Hawaiian sites. In fighting to preserve a neighboring little road and Hawaiian village at a time that few Caucasians ventured here, they became immersed in the spirit of Hawai‘i. What could they do afterward but surrender fully to its inexhaustible, creative force as a way of expressing gratitude? Mike Swerdlow learned to play the Hawaiian steel guitar and would eventually accompany some of Hawai‘i’s most beloved musicians; Swerdlow delved into her paints. “Now, almost 40 year later, people seeing my body of work often ask me if I can teach them how to paint,” she says. “But it doesn’t work that way. I can show you techniques, composition, whatever, but I can’t give you that spirit. This was about making a full commitment to it. This is hard work. What you see is the result of years and years of discipline, of continuing to paint even on days when inspiration lacks, of trusting that, sooner or later, colors and creativity will make you happy again, of daring to stretch.” Truth is, Swerdlow knew as a child that she would be an artist. She drew in books and scrawled on the walls. She dabbled at fashion design and interior design, and even did some acting and modeling. “My mother was extremely encouraging,” she recalls. “She herself painted, sang, and danced. She always said, ‘Sue, you can do anything.’ I had access to art and was lucky that way.” Swerdlow won a scholarship to Chouinard’s—today California’s Institute of Art—and attended for one year, but mostly she is self-taught. Swerdlow started out showing her Hawai‘i art as an artist-in-residence at what is today the Marriott Waikoloa, followed by other beachfront resorts. She did some shows. Ten years ago, she challenged herself with the opening of her first gallery in the remote district of Kohala, merely to see if she could truly sustain herself with just her art. She could. She continuously reinvents herself. For the last four-and-a-half years, Swerdlow’s art gallery has been located in Kohala’s old sugar plantation town Kapa'au. It’s a yellow-trimmed, four-room building (she has her easel in one of the rooms) that in the early 1900s functioned as a post office. It now sports brilliant copper ceilings and beaming red walls. Accentuated by for-sale rare antiques that double as subtle sense-of-place vignettes, here are Swerdlow’s older series defined by bold pen-and-ink drawings and lush acrylics. Among them: the Fisherman Series, which hints at family tattoos and intricate patterns of tapa cloths. Here are her watercolors layered in successive applications until a rich depth of realism is achieved. And there are her collages with gold leaf. Series include Exotic Women with Hula and Cherry Blossom images, the Market Day Series, filled with flowers and produce spilling over tables and local aunties milling about. There are the more nostalgic Aloha Series works that capture the scents and sounds of trade winds, lapping waves, lingering sunsets, plumeria blossoms, and vacation memories. Most recently, Swerdlow has been exploring large paintings that incorporate watercolors, colored pencils, and pastels. “This new technique started with miniature landscapes inspired by old Hawaiian roads,” she explains. “They were well received and quite naturally evolved in my latest series of bigger pieces. It’s impressionistic. Now I am at work on figures in that style, including Fishermen in Blue and Boy with Bananas.” Swerdlow currently also plays with a canvas that measures 48 by 54 inches—the view from two chairs on a Hawaiian länai. Play? Absolutely. What propels her is her joy. “You have to have a good time in creating, even when you sometimes struggle,” she says. Ultimately, what propels Swerdlow most is what she can give to her audience. “I want people to get happy when they look at my paintings,” she says. “I am trying to create a moment of beauty and truth. If I can do that for you, I have done my job.” Swerdlow’s art breathes movement and feeling. It is alive indeed. For Swerdlow, it can’t be any other way. “Art is so important. Without it, our lives are colorless,” she declares. “There would be no culture or civilization if we had no arts. The best of humankind can be found in them. We aren’t doing a good job at making peace or abolishing hunger in the world, but something in the human spirit always aspires to the arts.” You can view some of her below.
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