Sue Chenoweth

Artist's Statement

Painting becomes the terrain I travel. As the images ebb and flow, so do I. The marks are completely instinctive and unconscious and function as a type of reciprocal motion between the work and myself. These visible traces serve as a way of recording a primitive level of order. Even though each brushstroke and drawn line is completely subconscious, there is a profound sense of orderly direction to my art. Each mark is deliberately considered. The paintings are built on a scaffolding of Art History and all things formal. This is the stable base that allows me to try to employ a true artistic dichotomy. How does one think and not think at the same time?  I want the viewer to experience the bits of feelings we all have behind our thoughts. I want them to remember things without language and explore their primal sensory essence. This essence is that which makes us human.  Painting is about adaptation and change, transgression and redemption. It is the grand tale of ‘Every Man’ told through the language of drawing. I want to understand that language and be able to draw as easily as I breathe.

Artist's Bio

Sue Chenoweth was born in Plainview, Texas in 1953.  It was in Texas that she began drawing with white rocks on sidewalks around the age of two. After moving to Phoenix, Arizona at the age of four, she began feverishly setting up drawing systems which included shorthand formulas for sketching.  At age 14 she began to seriously study painting on her own by copying the works of Winslow Homer.  From age fourteen to eighteen she worked under the direction of Marlyne Jones, an Arizona artist and teacher who trained Chenoweth to understand the value of drawing on a deep level. “I feel that I learned the important things during that time,” she says,  “ I began using drawing as a way of ordering and relating.” Sue went on to receive both her BFA and MFA from Arizona State University and is currently teaching Drawing and Painting at Metropolitan Art Institute, a College Prepatory High School in Phoenix. “I feel like I am on a mission,” says Chenoweth, “In teaching, I want to perpetuate the legacy of drawing that was given to me as a youth.  I want people to understand the importance of markmaking before that language is lost forever.”