Susie Lee

I like the most all contemplations of the divine.

I sometimes believe in magic.

I admire adversity itself.

I have a fascination for the concept of Doors.

The imagery of a door to begin with often has the ability to catch one’s attention through beauty alone. However, the connotative ideas associated with doors, such as the things the door is keeping out, containing inside, or an open door versus a closed door, ignites the psychological venture of the mind to enter into different moods, emotions, and thoughts. Doors, the longer one stares at it, can incite a different or changing emotion and thought. One person can look at a door and see hope while another sees the same door and finds utter desperation. It can be a mere hollow opening in the wall or it can be the entering place of a destination. This aspect of doors has captured my interests – the ability of a door to challenge its approached to think, to ponder, to agonize perhaps, to search, and to yearn for.

Through my series of doors I strive to deliver that experience. Literally speaking, the series focuses on the idea of “seeing through,” with an emphasis on the different layers of the canvas’ history, with glimmers of what is beneath, on the other side, peeping through, fighting perhaps. The paintings wrestle with the idea of the underneath versus the exterior, what is hiding beneath or behind. My hope for the viewer would be that there would be a curiosity for the buried layers, the buried colors, textures, and stories and that that would invite the viewer to perhaps question the entirety of “things that are buried, the things unspoken of.” There are always things, in each of our lives, which we choose to keep buried, behind doors, behind locked doors, at the foot of an open door. And there are doors we are constantly trying to unlock and tear down. These are my doors.

The evolution of the series well depicts the momentum and transformations which describe the last year of my college career. The different applications of paint have allowed me to explore different moods and ideas and have taught me how to sing the same song with a different melody.

I have never been much of a harmony singer.

I admire perseverance over adversity.

I sometimes believe much more than I think.

I like the most all questioning of the things unspoken of.