Susan Cartwright

Susan has been drawing and painting since childhood. While living and working in Africa, where art supplies were hard to come by, she began to pursue her art more seriously, producing pen and ink sketches of landscapes and people. Once back in Canada, Susan enrolled in painting classes at the Ottawa School of Art producing landscapes, still lifes, and works depicting animals and birds. Cows and bulls figured prominently – their expressive faces and angular bodies provided great inspiration.

In 2016, Susan discovered printmaking and realized that she had found a medium that she loved and has since then immersed herself in that practice. Susan makes relief prints (primarily using linoleum, but also wood and Sintra, a PVC foam board) and intaglio prints (etchings from zinc plates, dry point (acetate) plates, collagraphs and Sintra). Her editions are tiny, and sometimes single monoprints and monotypes, especially when layering different printmaking techniques in the same print.

The natural environment, including the trees, plants, rocks, birds and animals that she observes around her, and her love of colour, inspire her art. Susan is currently working to tell the story of her much-loved rural property in the Ottawa Valley through a suite of prints, as well as capturing structures, light and pattern in the built environment in Ottawa.