Susan Skilling received her MFA from the University of Washington. She has exhibited in the Northwest since 1977. Skilling’s work has been collected by the City of Seattle, City Light Collection; Boeing Corporation, Chicago; Wild Ginger Restaurant, Seattle; and Microsoft Art Collection. She has been included in exhibitions at the Seattle Art Museum; Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner; and the Bellevue Arts Museum. Skilling lives and works in Seattle, WA. 

Susan Skilling's paintings are spare and elegant meditations on such widely varied subjects as Tibetan mandalas, plant forms, and slices of rocks, geodes and crystal. Often the work is geometrical but, even then, an organic sensitivity pervades the formal choices made by the artist. Along with artists like Morris Graves or Anne Appleby, Skilling's choices of imagery, color and content lead her in the pursuit of the sublime.

Painting with mineral based gouache paint, some of it handmade by the artist, Skilling creates a dense layering of subtly nuanced color over a handmade Thai mulberry paper surface. Her palette is somber and modest, with occasional highlights of brilliant, saturated color.

Since her early shows with Foster/White Gallery and last few decades at Greg Kucera Gallery, each body of her work has been a slow, quiet revelation of this artist's path toward a personal enlightenment. This is the kind of artist who is led by her inner voice and not by the dictates of fashion or the marketplace. Nonetheless, her work has maintained a broad area of contact with contemporary concerns in painting.

Born 1947 in Seattle

Education

1974
Master of Fine Arts, University of Washington, Seattle

1969
Bachelor of Arts, Scripps College, Claremont, CA

One-Person Exhibitions

2017
Greg Kucera Gallery, Seattle (2013, 2009, 2004)

2002
Foster/White Gallery, Seattle (also 1998, 1996, 1995, 1992, 1986, 1983, 1981, 1979, 1977)

Group Exhibitions

2014
Reading the World, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA

2008
Meditations on the Landscape, Northwest Museum of Arts & Culture, Spokane, WA

Northwest Art: Shaped by the Spirit, Shaped by the Hand, Museum of Northwest Art, La Conner, WA

1981
Western Washington University, Bellingham

1980
U.S.S.R. in conjunction with Cornish Institute

The City’s Collection, Bellevue Art Museum, WA

1976
Seattle City Light 1% for Art Collection, Seattle

Foster/White Gallery, Seattle

1975
Seattle Printmakers, Birmingham University, AL

Works on Paper, Seattle Art Museum

Selected Collections

Boeing Corporation, Chicago

Microsoft Art Collection, Redmond

Rainier Bank, Seattle

Seattle City Light 1% for Art, Portable Works Collection

Wild Ginger, Seattle

January 17, 2013
The Seattle Times
Jeffrey Simmons' fastidious geometries in watercolor - Susan Skilling and Jeffrey Simmons at Greg Kucera Gallery
by Michael Upchurch

Vanguard Seattle Blog

Susan Skilling at Greg Kucera

by Claire Reiner

December 10, 2004

Seattle Times

A Careful Observer's Meditative Impressionism
by Sheila Farr

“At Greg Kucera Gallery, Susan Skilling's delicate gouache paintings, most on handmade Thai mulberry paper, reflect on the cosmos. They aren't abstractions but contemplations on the way moonlight filters through the night sky or waves on the surface of water. Skilling balances the visual affirmations and choppy brushstrokes of Impressionism with the quiet meditations of Zen Buddhism…”

December 10, 2004
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer: Visual Arts
A Classic Northwest Celebration of the 'Lovely Muck'
by Regina Hackett

“What could be the anthem of the Northwest School came from London poet A.E. Housman: "And down in lovely muck I've lain, happy till I rose again."

Susan Skilling was raised on the lovely muck of the Northwest School's color palette, those muted grounds seeded with light…”

December 1 - 7, 2004
Seattle Weekly Visual Arts

SUSAN SKILLING AND LYNNE WOODS TURNER
by Andrew Engelson

“Minimalism is usually a cold, calculating brand of visual art. But Seattle's Skilling and Portland's Turner manage to inject a hefty dose of emotion into simple, austere forms…”