Gore-Gardner, Susan

Susan Gore Gardner has been creating affectionate landscapes of the South and portraits of its wildlife for 28 years. A life-long love of drawing became the passion of a lifetime during college days at Kennesaw College when under the tutelage of Thomson Salter and Barbara Swindell, Susan found her calling as a professional artist. Upon graduation Susan embarked on a career of exhibiting her artwork in art festivals and gallery exhibits throughout the Southeast. Her artistic career began as a wildlife artist and she became known for her lifelike colored pencil portraits of birds and other creatures in which backgrounds were minimized in order for the viewer to truly focus on the intricacy of the animals themselves. The artist became an annual exhibitor in the Lenox Square Wildlife Art Show, the Southern Wildlife Festival in Decatur, Alabama and for 14 years exhibited her work at the Art in the Park on the square in Marietta, Georgia. She was a finalist in the Georgia Wildlife Stamp competition and her wildlife art was featured in juried gallery exhibits including the Salmagundi Club in New York, St. Hubert's Giralda in Madison, New Jersey, the Galerie Triangle in Washington DC and the S. Brown Gallery in Buckhead, Georgia.
In 1990 Susan encountered the medium of pastels at a workshop taught by her friend Susan Knight Smith and found herself intrigued with the medium. Further workshops with Mrs. Smith and illustrator Joe Belt led Susan to the realization that she was ready for total immersion in this new medium. For several years Susan studied privately with painter Robert Meredith who helped her refine her artistic vision and whose influence led to an evolution in style and subject matter. Color-filled landscapes and unique still lifes created with pastels became her primary method of self-expression. An on-going series of landscapes continue to present the artist with intriguing challenges and an unintentional theme: The South. Painting trips to Ireland's southern counties, England's Midlands and southern regions, and southwestern France have all provided rich sources of inspiration that continue to produce strong drawings. Closer to home, a series of drawings have emerged that feature an 1865 Austell home which has to date been the subject of 7 paintings each showing the home in a different season or time of day.
Since discovering pastels, Susan's professional career has reached new heights. She has exhibited in the juried exhibits of the Southeastern Pastel Society and selected for other Georgia exhibitions at the Chateau Elan Gallery, King Plow Art Center in Atlanta, the Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art in Marietta, and ART Station in Stone Mountain. Landscapes inspired by European painting trips have been included in "The Charm of France" at the Ann Jackson Gallery in Roswell, three exhibits at her alma mater Kennesaw State University and 7 solo exhibitions.
Today Susan is working in her private studio in Bremen, Georgia on her small horse farm dubbed "The Shire" in honor of J.R.R. Tolkien's literary masterpiece 'The Hobbit'. Susan is currently represented by these Georgia galleries: The Red Cockerill Gallery in Austell, Gallery 4463 in Acworth, Illusions Gallery in Carrollton, and her representatives of over 20 years The Tallulah Gallery in Tallulah Falls, Georgia.


THE ARTIST'S STATEMENT:
"In sharing my artwork with you, I want to draw your attention to the awesome world God has created. Consider the joy of the birds in the air, the small majesty of a cat, and the breathtaking beauty of the countryside here in the southeastern states as well as in Ireland, France and my beloved England. My artwork will reveal to you those things that lie closest to my heart: my heritage & my belief in the presence of God in all that we behold."

Artist Website