My paintings are inspired by the influence and tension of accumulations of objects, living things, and ideas that can make patterns and piles and swarms—bees, roller coasters, DNA, origami, molecules, numbers, cells—proximity often changes the nature of the individual parts. The resulting effect can be soothing and orderly, chaotic and anxiety-producing, on purpose or accidental.
Media, such as wax, cellulose glue, glaze, ink, charcoal and paint, as well as collaged elements, echo the multilayered hierarchies that exist within these complexities. Paintings are often large scale (5x7'), with a combination of handmade pigments bound in different mediums, blind contour drawing, collage layering, and generously expansive brushwork.
There are patterns in everyday nature. Self-organized systems rule the natural world. Many organisms, when magnified, reveal their elegance and abstract beauty, their hierarchies a miniature of the universe in form and function.
Suzanne Dell’Orto earned her BFA from the School of Visual Arts, and her Master’s Degree in Studio Art from New York University’s Venice Program. She has been exhibiting her work since 1995. She had her first solo exhibition at the Molloy College Art Gallery in 2004. She curated the show Stuck: The Influence of Collage on 21st Century Artists, which was reviewed in the New York Times, (April 9, 2006).
She has exhibited at Galeria AAB, Brescia, Italy; Tree Gallery, New York, NY; Mobius, Boston, MA; New Media Artspace, New York, NY; Dryfoos Gallery at Kean University in Union, NJ; Hunter College Gallery in New York, NY; Gallery Aferro in Newark, NJ; Redsaw Gallery in Newark, NJ; and Tinku Gallery in Toronto, Canada.
View complete exhibition record here.
By the way, St. Modomnoc is the Patron Saint of Bees.
