Susan Abbottdream Tables

Susan AbbottDream tables

Tulips and Fields, Vermont.

Abbott creates each of these paintings by depicting an everyday tabletop still life, however her still life’s are consistently fresh, in part because the scenes are painted from peculiar viewing angles, usually slightly off centre and from above, (a bird’s eye view) as if her easel were on top of a stepladder. The unusual perspective makes it seem as though one is flying over the picture, looking down on the wealth of imagery.
Every painting is jammed with flowers, fruit, vegetables, figures, text, teacups, dishes, letters, books, tablecloths, carpets, magazines, household implements and other paintings. There is so much appealing stuff that the viewer can't avoid getting pulled in to read the postcards, marvel at the perfect eggplants and admire the oriental rugs.

"Where We Are Now" Watercolour 22" x 60"

"Piero, Fruit and Pitchers" Watercolour 22" x 30"

The images are drawn from Abbott's life, and have strong autobiographical theme. She is a native Washingtonian who moved four years ago to a farm in Vermont, a move inspired, according to her press materials, "by the desire to live in closer contact with nature."
Understandably, the Vermont landscape appears in several of the paintings. Abbott has also travelled through southern France and Italy in the past two years, so there are bits and pieces of Italy and Provence in some of the paintings.

"Dream Table" Watercolour 40" x 60"

The painting tell us a lot about the artist. She drinks tea, likes flowers, enjoys fine paintings, owns a deck of tarot cards and has friends who write eloquent letters and postcards. But through it all, one gets to know almost nothing about who Abbott really is, what she thinks, what she feels. All we know is what we see on those tabletops. It's that detachment, that distancing, that makes her work abstract. Beneath the beguiling surface and the welter of imagery abstracted from her daily life, these are paintings about painting, fantastic studies of form and colour, whose meaning can be almost anything the viewer wants.