The primary source of inspiration for Barbara Sussberg is the thrill of painting "water and its myriad reflections." Having spent much of her life living along the coast in New York, South Carolina, and Maine, Sussberg has had access to the ebb and flow of the tide, the subtle shifts of tonal washes, and the sparkling sky reflected in the dark sea below from multiple points across the Eastern Seaboard.
In the painting above, Sussberg crafted a deceptively simple composition using multiple tones of deep blues and silvers. Despite the linear composition, there is great depth behind the washy lines. The surface radiates with a sterling gleam between saturated blues. Her ultamarine is rich in tone and reminiscent of "International Klein Blue" developed in 1960 by Yves Klein.
Barbara Sussberg is a critically acclaimed native Westchester artist whose abstract works evoke a serene sense of the sea and nature with silver and gold undertones. Her intuitive sense of color and her ability to create textural effects from painting with a palette knife combine to achieve oil paintings that seem at once dimensional, watery and multi-layered. As the Washington Post Art Critic recently wrote of her work – “The basic elements could hardly be simpler, yet the result is complex.” Her paintings have been widely exhibited in the South and the Northeast and can be found in private collections throughout the US.
