Susan Bazin
My work has mostly been about aspects of the natural world and how we are part of it. Using acrylic paint, often with oil bar, in a layering process, the paintings contain both figurative and abstract elements. Circles are often present but this perfect geometric shape is not always whole! I enjoy working in series, long or short, which come to a natural end. For years I was interested in microbiology and science photography, so my paintings were attempts to express the micro processes constantly at work in the stuff of life. From this, when the human genome was first sequenced, I moved on to the idea of biology as identity and, indeed, DNA as “portrait”. After volunteering for a genetics project at UCL, I had fun printing out family face scans done there to use in collages. Later my paintings evolved into “landscapes” of the mind, often retaining the chromosomal or cellular shapes or the bands of the DNA “ fingerprint” to imply the presence of a human or other living organism, though in recent years I have mostly moved on from the DNA themes. My last series was about photos, memories and the brain. I always enjoyed poetry so I think of my paintings as the visual equivalent of poems and by the end should have an “anthology”!
Art education: Attended art schools in Stuttgart, Paris and New York before moving to London where I completed a BA in Practice and Theory of Visual Art at Chelsea College of Art and Design in 1997.
Studio: ACAVA Colville Road Studios, Acton, since 1996.