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Suzanne Walsh’s abstract work featured at new Headwaters Arts exhibit

January 9, 2025   ·   0 Comments

By Constance Scrafield

Abstract artist Suzanne Walsh says being around nature is important to her and, for her, painting nature happens as abstract and non-objective.

In an interview this week with the Citizen, she told us, “Even as a chid, I saw things as patterns; under 10 years old, I loved lines – always loved abstract.”

Walsh is on the Headwaters Arts Committee and she had just finished helping to hang the 38 pieces in the new Exhibition called Dreamscape, which opened this week on Jan. 8 and runs to Feb. 9.

Although she lives in Etobicoke, Walsh has come regularly to the Alton Mill Arts Centre Beginning when she used to have a chalet in Horning’s Mills, she came by the Mill years ago when it was empty and then visited often and joined Headwaters Arts.

“It’s sort-of tucked away,” she commented but she considers it wonderful and a great asset to the border community.

Abstract, non-objective art she interprets as more an intent not to show a real thing, saying, “When it is truly non-objective, other pieces remind me of coral. At the deep end, I am filled with shapes that just astound me.”

Abstract crosses different narratives and styles. What is fascinating about the painting she has installed in this exhibition, titled Starry Starry Night, and another, larger one is how she has taken a black line and given it a story.

“It is a starry starry night,” she commented. “I’m very happy about how my work is progressing with that little black line.”

She posited we are genetically here to see something in the abstract and we will always. Something of our own – bringing clear objects into the challenges abstract can deliver.

Walsh attended OCAD for a short time until “work got in the way” with a business with her partner. It was a Toronto-based shop, Turn of the Century Lighting.

“It was very creative in its own way,” she said.

Over the last 20 years, she has participated in annual one-week workshops in the summer at the Haliburton School of Art and Design.

“Art is very personal to me, even crafts like baking, crocheting. There is a lot of satisfaction in all of it. We must be respectful of creating,” she said. “When you get it right, that is very exciting.”

Camping, travelling in Canada and the US, hiking, especially on the Bruce trail, “a beautiful gem,” she calls it. These are her other favourite activities.

She explained that when she paints, she does not come with a plan and that she is always trying to improve by taking workshops. Some of the courses in Haliburton have been about abstract but others teach landscape painting. That is out of her comfort zone and she said that is a “good thing.”

What is considered extreme in abstract work was the question and Walsh confirmed there might be no bounds; there could be a line but a good line, as she said it. Each person’s psyche can decide for itself. With one line, artists can tell stories.

“What I’m trying to do with this piece is to work and develop a consistent narrative. The client wants to see a consistent body of work,” she outlined. “There’s an expectation for a viewer to potentially be a client, who wants to see that a single piece is not a one-off.”

For Suzanne Walsh, she likes mostly that she gets a chance to do art because she is stable financially and “health wise.” In life, there is this validation and she feels much gratitude that she can keep doing this; now in her 70s, this is a life’s journey.

Art moves her deeply; music is her other passion – jazz and classical mostly and her set intention is to continue to evolve.

Said Walsh, “I am grateful to be where I am at this time.”

Suzanne Walsh’s fabulous piece Starry Starry Night is at Headwaters Arts’ new show, Dreamscape, at the Alton Mill Arts Centre until Feb. 9.

For details go to www.headwatersarts.org.

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