Fragile Bones

This painting of a deer in moonlight is by Denver artist Suzanne Savoy.  

It is from her recent solo exhibition called This Fragile Existence which featured her abstracted paintings of animal skeletons, bleached bones, skulls and shed snakeskins over swirls of color.

She uses a technique of stippling acrylic paint dots on a glass panel.

I learned about her from my son. He provided the musical background at her exhibition in December. He's an amateur musician, not professional, and this came about because they have known each other in an extended social group for years. He's played for her other shows in the past.

What's her artwork like, I asked when he was here visiting recently. What does she paint?

Roadkill, he answered. She's inspired by roadkill.

Her mother collected specimens from the side of the road and had a taxidermist stuff them. Her art depicts that abstractly, in celebration of the fragility of life and death.

          Not only eewww, but weird. Roadkill??

But when he showed me instagram photos of her work, I was stunned. Her paintings are beautiful, richly colored and detailed. 

You can see some of her pieces here. I was immediately intrigued.  She does plants and abstract marbleized forms in addition to the animal skeletons. Her work is exactly what I have wanted for my home.

I wanted something impactful for the blank wall over my new living room sofa. Santa Fe is filled with impressive galleries and high end art. As with shopping for turquoise here, there is so much fine art offered at such steep prices that I am daunted, and I give up.

I can't afford anything I see, and I don't know how to value what I see. I even checked out IAIA (Institute of American Indian Arts, the college for Native American art studies) to find affordable pieces by students. Their work was interesting, if experimental, but nothing I wanted. 

For someone who is not a collector and is vaguely baffled by "art appreciation", I do know exactly what I want to display in my home -- western wildlife or plants with deep vibrant colors and some abstract edginess. 

Not landscapes or people. Not anything indigenous -- while I can appreciate depictions of Pueblo life in this part of the world, it's not my culture, and not for my home.

When I saw Suzanne Savoy's work, it ticked all my boxes.

And here is the painting of the deer over my traditional sofa in my conventional living room. We drove up to Denver last weekend to get it and to meet the artist.

I like that it picks up the black accents of armoire, fireplace surround, and metal table legs in this room, and looks sophisticated (to go with what my friend Peggy calls my new "adult" furniture).

The technique of painting on glass makes the work reflect and shift colors with the different slants of the sun coming in from the side. Sometimes there are bits of deep blue; at a different time of day pools of turquoise appear. 

At night the blues and turquoise disappear as moonlight overtakes the skeleton and only the pale dotted bones show against a moody black background on my wall.

Here's some detail up close:

When I sent pictures to the artist to show her how it looks in my room, she commented that the hair hide pillows below create an interesting dialog with the skeleton. I hadn't thought of that . . .

I know this piece of art isn't to everybody's taste, no single work ever is. But I love it.

It's big and dark and impactful from afar, exquisitely detailed in technique up close, the glass reflects and the colors change in New Mexico's transforming light, and it shows the fine dividing line between life and beautiful death. 

Wow.

🦌   🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌    🦌

How she creates the pointillist dots can be seen here

and also here. Here is her website.