Tree of Life

acrylic and ink on wood panel

48 x 36 inches

Courtesy of Quirk Gallery

Guest Curated by Kristen Chiacchia

Suzanna Fields grew up in Appalachia, where the strange and persistent permutations of nature seeped into her hyper-intricate paintings. Her layered work invites viewers to get close and consider our complex relationship with nature. Her process-driven paintings utilize a high-key color palette created with acrylic paint, mediums and dye-based inks with experimental techniques-including pouring, spraying, and extruding-to create tactile surfaces and fractal blooms that echo systems in the natural world.

Suzanna has exhibited work in museums and galleries regionally and nationally, notably at the Taubman Museum, the Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Weatherspoon Museum of Art, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and Old Dominion University. She completed residencies at the Studios of Key West, Mountain Lake Biological Station, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. Honors include a Bethesda Painting Award, a Liquitex Purchase Prize, and a Trawick Prize finalist. Her work is in private and public collections including the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Eleanor Wilson Museum, Wolford College, Capital One, Kimpton Hotel Group, Bill and Pam Royall, Kathie and Stephen Markel, and Shepard and Amanda Fairey. She received her MFA in Painting from Virginia Commonwealth University, her BA in Art and English at Mary Baldwin College and studied at St. Anne's College, Oxford.