Susan McLaughlin is recognized for her hauntingly imaginative and energetic paintings depicting harmony between humanity and nature.
John Torreano, Co-Director of NYU’s Painting Program, wrote in his foreward to her book, Depingo Ergo Sum,
Ms. McLaughlin’s paintings show authority with brushwork and she maintains a consistently assertive and convincing quality in both style and image. She moves nimbly across subject matter, context and medium, in order to present a coherent artistic vision.
When reviewing Ms. McLaughlin’s paintings, the well-known curator Ethan Karp wrote, “Ms McLaughlin's paintings appear to be wonderfully obsessive and subversive as well as beautifully made.”
Ms. McLaughlin’s work has been exhibited in museums such as the Monmouth Museum, NJ, The Bonnet House Museum, Ft. Lauderdale, NSU Art Museum, FL, and The Arnot Art Museum, NY. Her gallery exhibits include Aqua Art Miami; Artexpo, New York; Art Basel Miami, FL; 3rd Biennial of Contemporary Art of Argentia; Municipal Gallery, Cultural Arts Commission of Newtown, CT; Martha Gault Gallery, PA; Armstrong Gallery, GA; The Guild 545, FL; Dacia Gallery, NY and 13 Saatchi Artists (online). She also exhibits and is an Artist in Residence at Fat Village Center for the Arts, FL. She is an exhibiting member of the Society of Creative Artists of Newtown, where she has won the Judges’ Award. She has also received a Judges' Award and Best in Show Award from the Broward Art Guild, Ft. Lauderdale, FL. Ms. McLaughlin’s art is in many private collections including Calvin Klein and BBDO.
Ms. McLaughlin was born in Manhattan, and painted and lived there for most of her life. She earned a BFA from Parsons and a MA from NYU. She currently maintains two other studios – one in Lauderdale by the Sea, FL and the other in Newtown, CT. The varied locations at which she paints have had a positive influence on her artistic vision. She has been especially influenced by her wooded, lakeside environment in Newtown, where she is able to study the natural world around her.
As a narrative painter, I am an explorer, uncovering, recording and rearranging the beauty of the natural world, as well as the beauty of human beings. A romantic at heart and surrealist of hand, I combine elements of reality and fantasy in ways that shed a new light on the interrelationships between humans and the natural world. Sometimes the division is clear; on other occasions the two worlds melt into one. This symbiosis makes the finished work even more compelling than either of its constituents alone.