Susan Reiss

Susan Reiss is a California‑based painter whose work explores the emotional architecture of color, movement, and memory. Working primarily in watercolor, acrylic, and acrylic pen, she creates vibrant, textural compositions that merge floral abstraction with rhythmic, almost musical mark‑making. Her paintings are instantly recognizable for their swirling petals, mosaic-like vessels, and luminous fields of color that pulse with energy.

Across her series, Reiss treats flowers not as botanical subjects but as emotional forms—symbols of connection, resilience, and inner radiance. Her roses, often rendered in thick circular strokes, feel alive and kinetic, as if caught mid‑bloom. Surrounding them, she builds layered environments of grids, dots, and geometric fragments that echo the structure beneath human experience: the coded patterns, the quiet rituals, the unseen harmonies that shape a life.

Her palette is unapologetically expressive—sunlit yellows, oceanic blues, coral pinks, and deep reds—each chosen to evoke a specific emotional temperature. Whether working in the fluid transparency of watercolor or the sculptural density of acrylic, Reiss uses color as both language and landscape. Many pieces incorporate concentric circles, radi...