About the Artist
Susan Brabeau- Magic Realist with sentiments of a bygone era.
Covid took me to the gardens on my farm and I fell in love with my flowers and new inventive mediums to paint with.
When I think about what I'd like to know about a person, it would be what influenced them to be the person that they are today. So here goes; short sentences and thoughts. I am the person who is carrying on all the hopes and dreams of my entire family going back generations. My home is filled with their cherished possessions and now they are my cherished possessions. I am the Great granddaughter of an incredible stone sculptor who brought his family to America from Germany. I share his passion to create and offer it up to others. I am the artist who who carries on a love for the beauty in a humble face and desperately needs to put it on canvas. All 3 of my Great Uncles were portrait artists.
I graduated with a teaching degree from Michigan State University, did the beauty pageant circuit, sang my way thru college as a Big Band singer in Detroit, sang for 2 Presidents, sang a movie soundtrack that was nominated for an academy award, was a musical comedy actress in NYC and was the female lead in the musical, SHENANDOAH on Broadway.....But here's the important part: I am a wife, a mother and am devoted to the care and rescue of animals of all kinds, all on my wonderful farm in North Carolina. I carried a newborn bunny in my shirt for 4 days to keep him warm after he lost his mom. Life is so precious. Very seldom will you ever see my paintings without animals in them. They are my best friends.
After 25 years of constant painting and exploring my craft, I am now only seeing a glimmer of what I can do as an artist. Hard times have made me search my heart for what is really important for me to put on canvas and how I want to do it. Life Is Good!
MAGIC REALIST
SUSAN BRABEAU is a "MAGIC REALIST" painter.......no we didn't just make that up......it is an enduring category of painting in modernist art history.
Wanting to depict an idea, a sentiment or a moment vanished in time, like a film director, Susan Brabeau creates a cast of characters, places and things that she choreographs in a meticulous drawing and painting. Beyond ordinary description she paints each personage, each piece of furniture and each leaf on a plant more vivid than reality with knowledgeable skill from many years of observation and artistic practice. We the viewers are invited, even lured into her world of events and encounters with people, places and things we may have missed in everyday experience. Every bit is lovingly amplified from an eyebrow to a bicycle chain and visually enriched to engage us and transport us like a Technicolor stop-motion dream. As a master painter, Brabeau generously takes all the time it takes with commitment to her vision, applying her skillful know-how with a brush and color to carry us to that timeless place on canvas.
WELCOME TO MY GARDEN
In March of 2019 I decided to embark on a new journey and dive into the beauty of the garden. I usually take my photos at night with my iphone, flashlight and headlamp so that my colors pop thus I use iridescent enamel paints as a final coat. This gives my image a glow with and without a black light. During these explorations I come across all kinds of interesting insects and amphibians, nocturnal dwellers of this magic kingdom.
