Susan’s mission as an artist is to bring joy to others through the color and
emotional connection of her images.
She believes the human spirit requires
care and feeding, and that art provides an essential part of that
nourishment. Therefore she strives to create nourishing paintings. Her
painting has been influenced by Monet, Van Gogh, Matisse, Diebenkorn, and
Whistler, among others. She finds inspiration in their brilliant and
emotional use of color, and also their ability to evoke a sense of place and
transport the viewer there. Susan is a landscape painter living and working
in Sausalito, California. She grew up in New York graduating from Barnard
College in 1980. She went on to earn an M.A. in Art History from Hunter
College while becoming increasingly focused on painting. She also studied
painting at the Art Students League and the School of Visual Arts in New
York City, and spent five summers at Kate Millett's Art Colony. She and her
partner lived in Philadelphia before moving to San Francisco in 1995.
Susan paints with both oils and watercolors. In her oils she strives to create a strong sense of place and to communicate her response to the changing architecture of cities and the beauty of California landscapes. She uses a thick impasto technique, applying paint with both palette knife and brushes to achieve an impressionistic blend of color and lively surface texture. Her watercolors are light-filled local scenes and still lifes in an airy ink and wash technique. Ms. Sternau has exhibited in New York, Philadelphia, Tampa, and the San Francisco Bay Area. She had done numerous commissions and her work is in many private collections. She has also published book illustrations for Laura Ingalls Wilder: A Family Collection, and is the author of four books on art and architecture: Matisse, Art Deco, Art Nouveau, and Museums. Susan and her commissioned House Portraits were the topic of a feature article in the Noe Valley Voice in 1998. Her San Francisco-themed art was reproduced on hundreds of T-shirts for the 2003 San Francisco FrontRunners Pride Run. She also recently painted at a number of local events at Macy’s sponsored by Oprah Magazine. Susan has been represented by the Heartful Art Gallery since April 1st, 2004.
12/09/2006