Suze Woolf
If you’ve been here awhile, you know we love art with texture and art for a good cause! We were instantly impressed with Washington artist Suze Woolf. With an artistic vision as diverse as the ecosystems she seeks to protect, Woolf's work transcends conventional boundaries. Through a mesmerizing blend of mixed media and sculptural finesse, Woolf breathes life into her creations, each piece a testament to the resilience of nature amidst adversity. From the towering majesty of burned trees captured in colossal form to the intricate beauty of artist books crafted from bark-beetle-damaged wood, her artworks pulse with an undeniable vitality; attracting the viewer with their aesthetic details, while also serving as a call to action, a plea for environmental stewardship. With each masterpiece, Woolf invites us to pause, to reflect, and to engage with the pressing issues of our time. , acting as a poignant reminder of our shared responsibility to safeguard the planet we call home. We hope you enjoy her work as much as we do!
Suze Woolf studied ceramics and printmaking at the University of Washington. An early adopter of computer graphics, her career has also included print and interface design. Though known as a watercolorist, she explores a wide range of media from painting, paper-casting, artist books and pyrography to installation – sometimes all together. She has exhibited throughout the Pacific Northwest but also across the US and parts of Canada. Her work is in museums, public collections, and many private ones. She has curated a large travelling exhibit, juried competitions for municipalities and artist organizations, and contributed work to non-profit fundraising. An installation of her burned tree portraits is touring museums 2019-2024.
She has received grants, stipends and exhibits from Artist Trust, Shunpike, The Entrada Institute, Zion Natural History Association, the Museum of Northwest Art, the San Juan Islands Museum of Art, Missoula Art Museum and the University of Montana. She has been artist in residence in Zion, Glacier, Capitol Reef and North Cascades, Olympic and Great Basin National Parks. She was a test artist resident at the Grand Canyon Trust’s remote Kane Ranch. She attended nine annual plein air invitationals at Zion National Park. She has also been an invited resident at art colonies such as Banff Centre, Vermont Studio Center, Willowtail Springs, Jentel Foundation, Playa Summer Lake, Centrum, Mineral School and Sitka Center for Art & Ecology.
This series of work explained further:
Suze Woolf has watched glaciers shrink and burned forests increase. At first, she painted beautiful landscapes but was soon compelled to portray their ecological disturbances. Portraits of individual trees became her metaphor for human impact.
Despite her anxiety, she also sees unusual beauty. Fire-carved snags are all the same – carbonized, eaten away; yet different – fire physics and plant structure create sculpture. Painting is a meditation on climate crisis.
While hiking through those burned forests, she also sees the strange hieroglyphics of bark beetles' chewed trails (called “galleries!”) on the wood and bark of dead trees. They seem like some sort of coded message we’re just not getting.
Beetle-kill, like fire, is compounded by climate crisis: heat- and drought-stressed trees are more vulnerable; and the beetle larvae don't freeze in warmer winters. The bugs are evolving for success in the conditions we created.
Since a book is a collection of messages, artist books became another artistic meditation on human impact. Learning more about the life cycles of these insects from scientists; collaborating with poets, papermakers – even composers! – has been vast new source of inspiration. And incorporating the actual raw materials in these intimate, sequential, kinetic sculptures that use bookbinding techniques has become another opportunity for much-needed conversations.
Suze works to confront climate in painting, paper casting, pyrography, installation, and artist books. Like her best work, the results are both beautiful and disturbing.
Find Suze online at her website
Watercolor self portrait of the artist