{"id":14606,"date":"2012-12-06T01:47:07","date_gmt":"2012-12-06T07:47:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/?p=14606"},"modified":"2020-08-10T11:01:59","modified_gmt":"2020-08-10T17:01:59","slug":"susan-kirby-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/susan-kirby-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Susan Kirby: A Story in Every Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Susan<\/a><\/p>\n

photos by Kelly Green<\/span><\/p>\n

To walk through the front door of Susan Kirby\u2019s house\u00a0is to see an intimate portrait of Kirby herself: every wall is covered with paintings she\u2019s created, small to large, and each one tells a piece of her story. One of these works, a 7\u2019 x 9\u2019 painting titled \u201cSelf Portrait,\u201d mixes a variety of personal references, including family, friends, and the home Kirby grew up in.\u00a0It illustrates, Kirby explains, \u201cseveral voyages\u201d she has taken during her life including the journey where she realized she wanted to be an artist. From 1972 to 1974 she lived in Paris. One day she found herself walking down Rue Jacob, a street filled with galleries that sold na\u00efve art, work done by self-taught artists. \u201cI was walking through these galleries and enjoying the art and I just knew I could do this. I thought, this is me. I was seeing myself there. It\u2019s changed everything. If I didn\u2019t have my painting, I don\u2019t think I\u2019d be here. It\u2019s my life. It\u2019s like an anchor. It\u2019s given me a sense of purpose,\u201d Kirby says.<\/p>\n

In the artwork that\u2019s grounded her, Kirby has explored several recurring motifs. They include Frida Kahlo, the last supper, Adam and Eve, and a menagerie of felines. Kahlo\u2019s image appears in every Last Supper that Kirby has painted and she\u2019s done several series of Frida Kahlo dolls.\u00a0A series of six will appear in her show opening this month at Patrick Moore Gallery. Kirby expresses strong admiration for the famous Mexican artist. \u201cI connect with the way Frida put her suffering in to her art,\u201d she says. \u201cIt\u2019s just beautiful. And she didn\u2019t try to please anybody. I like that. She didn\u2019t paint to please people. She painted to please herself. That\u2019s just the best.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Kirby is influenced by other parts of Mexican culture, and one of her more recent pieces is a\u00a0calavera<\/em>.\u00a0The skull has mirrored eyes that reflect the viewer, and it\u2019s painted in lively tones. \u201cIt took me a long time to decide on those colors but I went hiking a lot when the leaves were turning yellow. The vibrancy of the yellow against the blue sky inspired me,\u201d Kirby says. Glitter and mirrors are materials she enjoys working with, and they were added because she felt the piece needed something that would add interest.<\/p>\n

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An equally colorful painting that Kirby just completed is a depiction of Adam and Eve.\u00a0\u201cI think it\u2019s a timeless theme we can all relate to,\u201d she says. For her latest incarnation of the couple, she painted two people she knows. \u201cThey do have the tattoos that you see in the painting. In fact they get more tattoos every day. It\u2019s good the painting is done because I couldn\u2019t keep up with how many tattoos they keep getting,\u201d Kirby says with a good-natured laugh.<\/p>\n

The Last Supper is another biblical theme that Kirby likes to revisit. As mentioned earlier, Frida Kahlo appears in each one. The other people sitting at the table tend to vary. \u201cThey\u2019re fun,\u201d Kirby says of these pieces, \u201cbecause you can choose different guests, so I usually choose them out of history or I pick people I admire.\u201d She likes to place certain people together, like Coco Chanel and Che Guevara, and imagine the conversation that might be taiing place between them.<\/p>\n

Her exploration of religious work recently inspired Kirby to paint her own version of Edvard Munch\u2019s \u201cThe Scream.\u201d\u00a0It depicts a woman wearing a tiara screaming in front of the Salt Lake Temple. \u201cI think it might have been inspired by Romney running for President,\u201d Kirby jokes. \u201cBut I hope it doesn\u2019t offend anyone. All my relatives are Mormon and they come into my house and see all my weird stuff. They kind of like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tigers, cats, and other feline references appear in her work. Sometimes they literally appear as Leopards\u00a0or the figure in a painting may just be wearing leopard print pants. \u201cI feel a oneness with cats,\u201d Kirby says. \u201cI once dreamt that I was a cat and I felt exactly how a cat feels. It\u2019s just total bliss.\u201d She\u2019ll often paint cats that were once her house pets, including one that she refers to as her Mexican cat.<\/p>\n

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From portraits of the last supper to her feline companions, Kirby frequently starts painting with a very deliberate idea in mind. Every so often it becomes a more fluid experience. \u201cI was going to do an Alice in Wonderland type thing and then the mushroom, as I was working on it, I just saw it as a dark silhouette of a man.\u00a0It sort of morphed. That usually doesn\u2019t happen because I have my idea before I paint. But this one changed mid-painting into a silhouette or a witness. It\u2019s kind of a subconscious work,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

While Kirby may explore an eclectic range of themes, she has a distinct style that catches the eye. Her provocative works intrigue and beckon people to take a closer look so they can understand the whole story.<\/p>\n

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A collection of approximately 30 pieces by Kirby will be on display at Patrick Moore Gallery from December 7\u201328. An opening reception will be held on Friday, December 7 from 6 to 9 pm. Regular hours are noon until 6 pm. Patrick Moore Gallery is located at 2233 S. 700 E.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

photos by Kelly Green To walk through the front door of Susan Kirby\u2019s house\u00a0is to see an intimate portrait of Kirby herself: every wall is covered with paintings she\u2019s created, small to large, and each one tells a piece of her story. One of these works, a 7\u2019 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1533,"featured_media":14660,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_piecal_is_event":false,"_piecal_start_date":"","_piecal_end_date":"","_piecal_is_allday":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,14],"tags":[894,834,535],"class_list":["post-14606","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibition_reviews","category-visual_arts","tag-by-kelly-green","tag-patrick-moore-gallery","tag-susan-kirby"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/12\/kirby.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-16 03:17:53","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14606","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1533"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14606"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14606\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54420,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14606\/revisions\/54420"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/artistsofutah.org\/15Bytes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}