1 DANCING TREES ONE 2001 Oils & gold leaf on gessoed paper 31 x 36"
2 THE FAMILY 2001 Oils on gessoed foam board 24 x 35"
3 TREES AND THE GOLD BORDER 2001 Pastel and mixed media 17 x 14"
4 SILVER TREES 2001 Mixed media 17 x 14"
5 FOUR TREE TOWERS 2001 4 boxes 12 x 5 x 5" approx.
6 TREE TOPS 2001 Mixed media 16 x 16"
7 TREES AT SUNSET 2001 Oil on canvas 6 x 8"
8 CONNECTICUT POND IN WINTER 1999 Oils on gessoed paper 47 x 40"
9 AUTUMN MIST 1998 Oil on canvas 20 x 24"
10 MORNING BLUE 1999 Acrylic 41 x 47 ¾"
11 SUN AND SHADOW 2001 Oils & gold leaf on gessoed paper 39 1/2 x 31 ¼"
12 THE SINGLE TREE 2001 Mixed media on vellum 24 x 19"
13 THREE BLACK TREES 2001 Mixed media on vellum 24 x 19"

14 TREES DANCING AT DUSK Mixed media triptych 48 ¼ x 72"
15 MISTY ROAD 2001 Oils on gessoed paper 32 ½ x 36 ½"
16 THE BLACK TREE DIPTYCH 2002 India ink 49 x 19"

17 ANNU 2001 Charcoal on vellum 24 x 19"
18 COPPER TREES 2001 Mixed media on vellum 24 x 19"
19 CROSSING PATHS 2001 Oil on canvas board 24 x 18"
20 ROLAND 2001 Mixed media Portrait Box 11 5/6 x 9 3/4 x 2 7/8"

21 SUN & SILVER TREES 2001 Oils on gessoed foamboard 24 1/8 x 24"
22 Diane 2001 Mixed media, Portrait Box 9 ½ x 9 7/8 x 3"
24 SPRING ROAD 2001 Oil on canvas 30 x 24"
25 TREE LINED PATH 2001 Pastel on canvas paper 10 ½ x 11 ½"

26 BURNING TREE 1999 Mixed media 20 ¾ x 8 x 8"
27 THE OPENING 1998 oil on canvas 24 x 20"
28 TREES AND SHADOWS 2001 Mixed media 17 x 14"
29 ROAD ANGEL 2001 Oil on canvas board 24 x 18"
30 TREES DANCING AT SUNSET 2001 Acrylic on paper 16 ¾ x 14"
31 MOTHERS OF ISRAEL 1976 Bronze cast 17 x 18 ½ x 3"
32 THE LONG ROAD 2001 Oil on canvas board 24 x 18"
33 MOON OVER THE ORCHARD 2001 Oil on canvas 14 x 11"
34 PATHWAY 2001 Oil on canvas board 24 x 20"
35 WINTER TREE OVERLAY 2002 Mixed media on vellum sheets 24 x 19"
36 OPEN FIGURE 1998 Sheet bronze 72 x 25 x 16"
37 TRACE OF GREEN 2002 Mixed media 9 ½ x 12"

ARTIST'S STATEMENT

From Painting to Painting is an exhibit of paintings and portrait boxes from the newest chapter of my work. Few people know that I was a painter of trees (see Autumn Burst, acrylic on paper, 1959), landscapes, abstracts, and imaginary portraits with surrealist tendencies until I moved to Ridgefield in 1965. I then went to the Silvermine College of Art (now the Silvermine Guild Art Center) to study welded sculpture while my home studio was in construction. That course carried me on to 30 + years as a metal sculptor, mask maker, performance artist, and, as of 1982, a printmaker using metal shapes as the basis for my plates. I never imagined my metal (see Mariner, Mothers of Israel and Fractured Figure) and mixed media sculpture along with a proclivity for interaction (with masks) would find resonance in 28 countries. Printmaking with the collage element, chine colle, brought me back to two dimensions, but the return journey to painting that now so excites me took many years. In the interim, I created 850 sculpture works, 50 mask tales, and over 1000 monoprints with chine colle. The blank space finally beckoned me in 1993. After four months in India on a Fulbright, I went to the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland. I knew that there would be no facility for welding or printmaking and instead made pastel portraits of the artists-in- residence at the center. I continued on with portraits while in Kenya, Tanzania and England. Then, Harvard students posed for me while I was resident artist at Adams House in 1997. I had moved into making portrait boxes in Spain at Fundacion Valparaiso (1996, 1998). The first one was based on a sketch of a Bosnian child that I had drawn in Bosnia where I was leading mask and story workshops (1996) just before my first residency at the Fundacion. The Annu, Diane, and Roland portrait boxes in this exhibit were made later in 2001. New environments spur my important work transitions. A ten-week artist residency at Weir Farm (1998-1999), a mere ten minutes from my Ridgefield home, came with a 1000 square foot studio. It was an ideal environment for painting. I was surrounded by 300 acres of woods and peaceful quiet. I followed the tradition of Thoreau with daily walks in the woods and went sketching along the way much as Alden Weir had done. J Watching the sun moving in its daily cycle through the trees also proved inspirational. Autumn Mist and The Opening, oils of canvas; Morning Blue and Weir Pond in Winter, oils on gessoed paper; and Trees Dancing at Dusk, oil and pastel on plaster and gessoed foam board are some of the works from that period in this show. During the summer of 2001, a month at the Byrdcliffe Artist Colony in Woodstock, NY gave the time for morning walks, all day painting and portrait box making in the studio allotted to me (see Road Angel, Family and Spring Road to name a few). I am now established in my new path and have gone round robin by turning my Ridgefield welding studio into an active painting studio. As Patsy Whitman was curating this exhibition, I took Autumn Burst out from a hidden cache of early work (1959). Then looking again at the most recent work chosen for the exhibition, Trees on Vellum, we saw that my signature style of expressive trees began in Newtown, CT in 1958. That was the starting point that hindsight now proves prophetic.

Suzanne Benton 2002