Los Gatos Weekly-Times

Photograph by George Sakkestad

Theres Rohan, curator of exhibitions at Montalvo Art Gallery, studies painter Sylvia Sussman's "Blue Space."

The spaces between earth and sky

By Shari Kaplan

Visually grounded with the image of the horizon as her starting point, East Bay artist Sylvia Sussman uses pastels, graphite and oil on canvas to abstract the ever-changing spaces formed between the earth and sky, as well as how water and weather contribute to this relationship.

These are the inspirations for Horizon as Structure, an exhibit of more than a dozen of Sussman's works on display through Oct. 27 at The Gallery at Villa Montalvo in Saratoga. Her canvases, which range from small, postcard-sized studies to 72-inch by 120-inch diptychs, are displayed the same way Sussman paints them--stretched tautly against the walls and without frames, which maintains the expansion of space she seeks to create.

Sussman says many of her paintings are inspired by morning walks she takes with her dogs along Bay Area marshlands, mud flats and marina areas, particularly those near her home/studio in Berkeley. Other favorite spots include the Point Isabel dog park in El Cerrito and her former haunt of Point Pinole, back when she had a studio in San Pablo.

"I've been walking dogs the past 10 or 12 years along the bay. I'm always looking at the bay and at the horizon and the changing colors of the water and sky," she says.

"My paintings play and work with the spaces created by the horizon, or its absence: by the sky, the weather, the earth and its expanse, its curvature, its fecundity, the water, its movement, its colors; by light manifested in atmosphere; by the landscape's presence, its fullness and its emptiness," she explains in her artist's statement.

Among those paintings are "Sienna and Grey," a recent oil-on-canvas painting in her Horizon series. Dominated by its namesake colors, this somewhat abstract painting--like many of her others--can be interpreted several ways.

On first glance, it may resemble the view a person has climbing a terraced hill and looking over the rim at the sky above. Upon further study, it can become a dirt and sand beach with a small puddle in the foreground; the beach leads to the water's edge, where waves crash and foggy clouds roll by overhead.

In "Blue Horizon," the color of the brownish-maize clouds overhead are reflected closely by the hues of what looks like earth below--or perhaps it is the earth that is coloring the clouds. Either way, a blue crack of horizon shows through to balance the painting and pull the viewer's eye into the canvas.

Although she holds a bachelor's and doctorate degree in sociology, Sussman says she has loved painting since she was a child but became discouraged when she couldn't portray images the way she thought painters should. She began painting in her 30s, took some art classes at the San Francisco Art Institute and says she "took to it" immediately.

Along with painting, she currently teaches qualitative research methods at the Center for Psychological Studies in Albany and also teaches at the Life Drawing Workshop in Berkeley.

The Gallery at Montalvo is open Thu.-Fri., 1-4 p.m.; Sat.-Sun., 11 a.m.-4 p.m.; and before Montalvo concerts and during intermissions. "From the Horizon," an interpretive dance event based on Sussman's works by the Judith Komoroske dancers, takes place Oct. 6 at 2 p.m. For more information, call 741-3421, ext. 331.