Unity Painting

Susan Clifton, a South Florida artist, attended Philadelphia College of Art as a painting major and studied Photography at the School of Visual Arts in New York City. Susan worked for many years as an advertising art director, graphic designer and web developer before returning to her first love . . . Painting. Her experiences working with some of the great photographers of the Twentieth Century, like Richard Avedon and Francesco Scavullo, contributed to her sense of color and composition. Susan believes she was born an artist. She has dabbled in many forms of the arts - Dance, Photography, Graphic Design, Mosaics, Jewelry Making and Painting. Her early paintings were large graphic representations of the human form in a more POP art style. She is returning to the human form but combines realism with bold graphics with a strong sense of color. In 2009 she was one of ten artists selected for the Broward County grant funded show called DBA....Artist Entrepreneur. 2009 also found her in Art Fusion Gallery in the Miami Design District. In 2010 she was awarded a Broward County grant for an exhibit called Art Aquatic, the opening was in May of 2011 and was a hugh success. This exhibit was a collaboration with her husband Doug Barkley. The show included Doug's underwater video along with Susan's series of aquatic paintings. In 2011 Susan was selected to represent Florida in a deck of playing cards called "Art in Hand, the U.S.A. Project". Her painting of Zelda, the pink flamingo was selected to be the 2 of clubs and has been featured on the box and by the website . Her latest series is called Grey Matter. The paintings are fabric mosaic printed with thoughts. The concept of Thoughts Create Your Reality is the main subject of this series. Most recently the series has evolved in hand symbols associated with the subject. The work is very textural and colorful. The grey hands and bodies add a sophistication to the work.