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Susan HartnettJan. 16 2001, continuing fine snow as dusk comes2001pastel on painted paper121 x 159 cm
Susan HartnettFeb 1 1997, Into the woods, into the snow1997pastel on painted paper126,4 x 163,2 cm
Susan HartnettJan 10 2001, Heavy snow stuck for days2001pastel on painted paper121,3 x 161,9 cm
Susan HartnettPennisetum Alopecuroides Moudry, Black Fountain switch grass Moudry, April 14 20132013charcoal on paper45,5 x 60,7 cm
Susan HartnettPennisetum Alopecuroides Moudry, Black Fountain switch grass Moudry, September 9 20122012charcoal on paper45,5 x 60,7 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 8 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 12 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 11 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettCalamagrostis canadensis, Blue-joint grass, Nov. 6 20112011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 6 2011, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 8 2011 #3, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 9 2011 #1, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 10 2011 #1, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 7 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 12 2011 #1, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 18 2011 #1, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettDec. 1 2011 #2, Blue lyme grass (Leymus arenarius)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettLeymus arenarius, Blue oat grass, Dec. 13 2011 (1)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettDec. 12 2011 #1, Blye lyme grass (Leymus arenarius)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 18 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (calamagrostis canadensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 25 2006, Sea tears at its bed2006pastel on painted paper113 x 170,5 cm
Susan HartnettDec. 6 2006, second snow2006pastel on unpainted paper121,9 x 173 cm
Susan HartnettFeb. 14 2005, Diamond shining2005pastel on acrylic painted paper121 x 167 cm
Susan HartnettOct. 5 2004, deer beds, meadow, moonlight2004pastel, charcoal, graphite, ink, acrylic on paper120 x 180 cm
Susan HartnettFeb. 7 2003, snowy trackless wood2003pastel, crayon, graphite on painted paper121,9 x 171 cm
Susan HartnettJan 4 2001, Clearing dusk, after soft snow2001pastel on painted paper120,6 x 153 cm
Susan HartnettMarch 15 '99 Arctic birds, Arctic memories1999pastel on painted paper120,3 x 155,2 cm
Susan HartnettApril 3, 1992 Light snow at dawn - birches1992pastel on painted paper118,1 x 151,1 cm
Susan HartnettJan. 18 '03, Mar. 21 '07, River receives sleety snow2007pastel, oil pastel, charcoal, graphite, cryaon, crushed shell on pape
Susan Hartnett, b. 1940 in St. Louis, Missouri (US), lives and works in New York (US).
Susan Hartnett’s oeuvre consists of charcoal drawings and large-scale pastels on painted paper. Hartnett finds inspiration in both Eastern and Western traditions, from Asian philosophy to Chinese and Japanese ink painting and calligraphy via modern and contemporary art.
The charcoal drawings of field, marsh and dune grasses reveal what the artist observes directly, capturing with precision the rhythmical movements of the wind and grasses rearranging themselves. Every stroke is carefully considered. The pastel paintings are delicate and detailed observations of field and seaside landscapes. Visual elements such as leaves, branches and waves come together in a sophisticated but balanced composition. Movement in the work is reinforced by the nature of the material used, pastel, dependent on the pressure applied to it. The different species teach the artist new configurations of space and form. The subject of the drawings is not grass, but an unnameable feeling.
‘So each grass drawing has its own look, own character. They are almost written sometimes: start at one edge and end up at the other. No erasures. Like jazz, one has to get it done right on the first go. All the knowledge present and ready to play at showtime – a coherent whole – emotionally complete.’
Susan Hartnett has had solo exhibitions at Kunstmuseum Bochum and Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten (Marl). Her work has featured in group shows at Portland Museum of Art, Lismore Castle Arts (Waterford), Colby College Museum of Art (Waterville), Bowdoin College Museum of Art (Maine), New Jersey Center for Visual Arts, Asheville Art Museum, Farnsworth Museum (Rockland) and Susquehanna Art Museum (Harrisburg).
Susan Hartnett joined the gallery in 2014.
curator: Allegra Pesenti
There is a de Kooning story. Someone says that the 20th century is no time to be painting women. So, of course, why not do it, de Kooning said. Ditto grass. I’ve always drawn plants; for wages work, to see better, out of curiosity, feeling, to concentrate when screwed-up. To be out-doors, paying high attention.
Those earlier drawings often contour or illustrative.
A lot of knowledge of Chinese and Japanese ink painting and calligraphy had to be thoroughly assimilated before the “stroke” could be applied. Large leaves need a supple brush, whereas grass or twigs could be done with strokes of different thicknesses of charcoal. I’ve made charcoal supple.
Got irritated by Dürer’s beautiful little patch of grass, its outlines. Wanted to do him one better. Also egged-on by Leonardo’s and Matisse’s plant drawings and those of numerous Chinese and Japanese painters. Also, to make finished drawings that worked but were not symbolic in Chinese sense. Yes, symbolic in sense that all drawing is. But drawing is a real-life, real-time activity for those who do it. And a real-time effect on whoever sees/feels it. Not symbolic at all. A contradiction.
Chinese characters are composites of strokes, assembled in a certain order to make a picture/word concept. The calligraphic “whole” of the character is important to them. Calligraphy is a “piece of the heart”. So each grass drawing has its own look, own character. They are almost written sometimes: start at one edge and end up at the other. No erasures. Like jazz, one has to get it done right on the first go. All the knowledge present and ready to play at showtime - a coherent whole - emotionally complete.
They are species-specific. Submitting to species teaches me new configurations of space, new strokes. Look really closely at other species. Listen to surroundings - cows or sea or singing birds, leaf-rustle, wind, brooks. Done at all seasons in front of the plants. Just not in rain or wind or below 32 degrees Fahrenheit or noon-sun (wind rearranges the plant parts, rain gets on paper, below 32 F freezes my fingers, sun burns me and hurts eyes). Keep watch on patches nearby on foot and in 100 mile radius. Drive car slowly along back-roads and pull over when I see promising grass patches. Drawing materials always in car. Walk up and down, find new configurations, shift left or right a bit. Do 3 or 4 or 5. High attention. Go home exhausted but thrilled. Hopeful I caught something solid. Life on the fly. Much later, often I look at drawing and think “what the hell is that”, surprised. Many thoughts and moods reflected; many complex feelings engendered.
Grass-writing is a mistranslated English expression for a wild cursive Chinese script that greatly attracts me. Watching grasses rearrange themselves in breeze, I think maybe ancient calligraphers were affected by watching them. Also Arabic and Hebrew writing like grass.
Grass is hair of the earth. Ubiquitous. Mercifully covers all our graves. Holds earth in place. Where are all the Indians buried who lived here 10-20000 years ago? All the little babies who died the first winter. Thousands and thousands of people silently under the grass. And all the birds and foxes and deer.
We eat grass-oats, barley, corn, wheat, rice.
The animals who eat grass feed us - cows, goats, sheep, deer, buffalo.
Not all charcoals are grass species. Some are woody plants. Majority are grass because I like the straight lines and curves, the variety given me by a large number of supple plants that radically change through a year. The miracle that plants totally sheared-off by a snowplow regrow. Beauty of its different stages. Challenging. Interesting.
The mathematics, the forms that cells have to make such curves. Resilience of its stems. Grace. Particularity.
Drawings’ space is Chinese space. Tao-glowing void is full, out of which life comes. One mark on a blank page is like a thousand marks, the manifestation of something. Drawn as plant grows (Chinese), up from base, out from stem to leaf-tip. Get the “Chi” right (life energy). “Become the bamboo” as a long-ago Chinese painter put it. Matisses “pretty whiteness of the paper”.
Hold contradictions:
Slow - fast / flat - deep space / raw - cooked / clean - messy / active - still / considered - immediate
Not figure on ground in western sense, but they are “western” drawings, even American 20th century. Each time I get one, I wonder, whose heart will that one reach? Whose soul or psyche will match up with it? Odd business. With my heart on my sleeve. Drawing reveals what you know and what you don’t.
Full exposure. They are finished works in themselves, not sketches or prep for bigger painted drawings.
There is the mystery of life on Earth, the mystery of this or that species as a temporary, satisfactory solution in an evolutionary sense, the mystery of myself attracted to/involved in this activity.
One makes art because one has to.
Feeling -> thought -> touch (draw) -> farm (drawing) -> feeling -> thought …
Shakespeare (paraphrased, misremembered) “How is fancy bred, how begot, how nourish-ed. It is engendered in the eye, by gazing fed.”
Mystical experience, revelation, eros if art/craft/need is up to it. Freshness, ecstasy, purpose, practice. Common as grass. Signalling dry places to lie down while hiking. Sweet hay in barn to sleep in. The scent of cut grass goes deep into lungs and psyche and gives pleasure to our old, OLD animal selves. And silhouettes, shadow-like, attract our old animal vision, when one’s life depended on knowing what was around as one moved, scavenged.
The drawing’s subject is not grass, but feeling, unnamable. Grass is a vehicle and I’m a conduit, making marks in a 30,000 year old tradition. Susan Hartnett (August 1999)
Martin MargielaBodypart b&w2018 - 2020oil pastel on projection screen123 x 222 x 8 cm
N. DashUntitled2022earth, acrylic, canvas, fabric, silkscreen ink, jute151,13 x 78,74 cm59,5 x 31 in
Pietro RoccasalvaStudy for Giocondità2022oil on canvas48 x 64 cm
Kim JonesUntitled2001 - 2007acrylic and ink on photograph45,7 x 30,5 cm
Jenny ScobelAmanda (II)2011pencil, watercolour and wax on gessoed wood81,3 x 61 cm
Pélagie GbaguidiCare2020dry pastel and wool on paper21 x 29 cm
Pélagie GbaguidiCare2020dry pastel on paper29 x 21 cm
Mircea SuciuStudy for "Empathy for Destruction"2022oil, acrylic, liquin, charcoal and varnish on linen70 x 50 cm
Marina RheingantzSexy X2022oil on canvas130 x 110 cm
Jockum NordströmCat Dog Cat2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper40 x 50 cm
Hyun-Sook Song9 Brushstrokes2017tempera on canvas130 x 70 cm
Jan De MaesschalckImpersonation (based on a photo by Johan Jacobs)2022oil on canvas65,2 x 55,2 cm
Yun-Fei JiThe Dead Are also Moving2007mineral pigments and ink on rice paper89,5 x 97 cm
Grace SchwindtGuard2022ceramic and bronze (edition of 3 + 1 AP)53 x 9 x 9 cm
Kees GoudzwaardOn Display2022oil on canvas70 x 60 cm
Jack WhittenSilver Centerfold2015acrylic on panel3 x (30,5 x 30,5 cm)
Philip Metten2203222022oil and thread on canvas23,1 x 23,2 cm
Paulo MonteiroUntitled2016oil on bronze (edition of 3 + 1 AP)56 x 2 x 4 cm
Paulo MonteiroUntitled2018oil on bronze (edition of 3)16,6 x 10,5 x 4,8 cm
Paulo MonteiroUntitled2016bronze (edition of 2 + 1 AP)18,5 x 62 x 22,5 cm
Naoto KawaharaNaked Girl2022oil on canvas72,8 x 53,4 cm
Bart StolleUntitled (Heat upon Heat)2022acrylic on canvas40 x 40 cm
Photo: Peter CoxCourtesy Zeno X Gallery, AntwerpInstallation view
Susan HartnettNov. 25 2011 #2, Blue lyme grass (Leymus arenarius)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Jockum NordströmConsultation2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper52 x 65 cm
Jack WhittenLoop #24 (Spiral)2012acrylic on canvas20,3 x 20,3 cm
Jockum NordströmLies about the Truth2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper50 x 40 cm
Jack WhittenFeedback Loop I (for Cy Twombly)2012acrylic on canvas160 x 261 cm
Jockum NordströmDistress2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper65 x 45 cm
Jack WhittenLoop #23 (Spiral)2012acrylic on canvas20,3 x 20,3 cm
Dirk Braeckman1/1 - P023 a - 2015 - 1/12015gelatin silver print reversibly mounted on aluminium support90 x 60 cm
Dirk Braeckman1/1 - P021 a - 2015 - 1/12015gelatin silver print reversibly mounted on aluminium support90 x 60 cm
Dirk BraeckmanC.I.-O.M. - 15 - 20152015gelatin silver print reversibly mounted on aluminium support (1 of 3)180 x 120 cm
Jockum NordströmParklife2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper65 x 45 cm
Jockum NordströmStjärntydare / Astrologist2016collage, watercolour and graphite on paper45 x 31 cm
Photo: Peter CoxCourtesy Zeno X Gallery - AntwerpInstallation view
John KörmelingNew Friend, Maasplein Utrecht1995pencil on paper29,7 x 21,0 cm
John KörmelingAutovrije Stad2002pencil on paper29,7 x 21,0 cm
John KörmelingWatertaxi, Hotel New York Rotterdam1999pencil on paper21,0 x 29,7 cm
John KörmelingDrive-In Wheel, Mobile Fun1999pencil on pape
John KörmelingBetter City, Better Life, Happy Street - Het Interieur is Buiten2006pencil on paper30,0 x 42,5 cm
John KörmelingMotel Vianen2012pencil on paper21,0 x 29,7 cm
Pietro RoccasalvaStudy for Il Traviatore2013charcoal on paper12,3 x 16,5 cm
Pietro RoccasalvaStudy from Just Married Machine2014charcoal and pastel on paper26,5 x 65 cm
Pietro RoccasalvaStudy for Il Traviatore2014charcoal on paper54,8 x 27,2 cm
John KörmelingSociale Weg (Socialized Road)2001pencil on paper29,7 x 21 cm
John KörmelingHet Nederlands Paviljoen 2010, Happy Street2006pencil on paper30 x 52 cm
Jack WhittenRadiator Drawing #22010graphite on rice paper49,5 x 68,5 cm
Jack WhittenRadiator Drawing #32010graphite on rice paper49,5 x 68,5 cm
Jack WhittenSyntax #112010dry pigment on rice paper17,1 x 59,7 cm
Jack WhittenSyntax #122010dry pigment on rice paper15,9 x 62,2 cm
Marlene DumasJ.H.1992ink and crayon on paper20,5 x 14 cm
Luc TuymansGood Advice2014gouache on paper40,4 x 29,7 cm
Luc TuymansAllo!2014watercolour on paper11 x 80,5 cm
Luc TuymansThunderbirds2014pastel on paper29,5 x 17 cm
Luc TuymansPanel2014gouache on paper42 x 29,7 cm
Pietro RoccasalvaStudy for Il Traviatore2013charcoal on paper12 x 15 cm
Jan De MaesschalckLes Doublures (The Understudies)2014acrylic on paper47 x 65 cm
Jan De MaesschalckLooking Back2014acrylic on paper55 x 36,5 cm
Jan De MaesschalckUntitled (Long Distance Call)2014acrylic on paper43 x 36,7 cm
Jan De MaesschalckUntitled (In Memoriam Card)2014acrylic on paper40 x 36,5 cm
Jan De MaesschalckTale of Chivalry2014acrylic on paper42,4 x 33 cm
Johannes KahrsUntitled2013graphite on paper72,4 x 54 cm
Johannes KahrsUntitled2013graphite on paper98 x 76,9 cm
Johannes KahrsUntitled2013graphite on paper61,8 x 74,9 cm
Johannes KahrsOT (Plan)2013graphite on paper51 x 51 cm
Marlene DumasPoging 8 tot het Verbeelden van Jan Hoet1992ink and crayon on paper20,5 x 13,5 cm
Marlene DumasPortret Jan Hoet1992ink and crayon on paper20,5 x 14,7 cm
Marlene DumasPortret voor JH1992ink and crayon on paper20,5 x 15 cm
Photo: Peter CoxCourtesy Zeno X Gallery - Antwerp
Susan HartnettCalamagrostis canadensis, Blue-joint grass, Sept. 11 20042004charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Susan HartnettSept. 29 2011 #2, Blue-joint grass (Calamagrostis candensis)2011charcoal on paper56,5 x 76 cm
Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, United States of America Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville, United States of America The Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, United States of America M WOODS, Beijing, China MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Angeles, United States of America The Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North Carolina, Greensboro, United States of America
“Susan Hartnett’s Maine Grasses” Bowdoin College Museum of Art, brochure with text by Alison Ferris June 1999
“Susan Hartnett – Grass Drawings” Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten, text by Susan Hartnett August 1999
“Nature Poet; Susan Hartnett” The New Yorker, article by Calvin Tomkins November 1998
Skulpturenmuseum Glaskasten MarlMarl, Germany, 199947 pages, ISBN 3924790515