Susan McLaughlin

GARDEN PARTY

Created in my Newtown, CT studio

"The Garden Party paintings create a profound romance with nature and our relationship with the world." —Noor Blazekovic, Curator, Irreversible Projects

In this body of work the division between the human and natural world is clear. I combine elements of reality and fantasy to shed a new light on the interrelationships between humans and the natural world around us. I painted this new world through the lens of metaphor, such as a live fox worn around a girl's neck as a stole, dress-painting monkeys, and birds nesting as a hat. This use of visual metaphors unlocks the subconscious and gives full rein to the imagination, both mine and the viewers'. It creates connections between two seemingly different things, or, perhaps, two different worlds.