Trees, woods, flowers and the botanical world have become material, inspiration, idea, source, and solace in Susan Lyman's new work. What the woods naturally cough up, as in driftwood on the Provincetown sea shore, tear down, as in trees felled in Hurricane Bob, or leave behind, as in balsam trees at Christmas, the artist accumulates and repurposes as raw material for her sculptures. Lyman works back and forth between drawing and painting and sculpture, bringing life to the wood, and in turn, populating the imagined landscape paintings with the stuff of her sculpture.
Envy 2013
"The title and the image are suggestive enough. I like its vulnerability, pathos, humor, and direct references to images of the female form- like hosiery hanging out to dry. It 's about the ideals of the perfectly thin female, perhaps too thin… And I associate the color acid green to envy."
-Susan Lyman