About Susan

In her decades-spanning practice, Susan has explored nature and aged environments through varied materials and mediums. Susan, who has a BA in Art History, began exploring abstract art using watercolors. In her early work in the 1990s, she created textured layers of collaged watercolors. By strategic cuts from her large abstract watercolor paintings and reconstructing the parts into smaller compositions secured by thread; she created layered landscapes while highlighting built up texture. Susan later experimented with assemblage using wax and fibrous materials to build three-dimensional pieces out of a flat substrate. She currently works in acrylic, inks, and plaster to render nature in an abstract way.

Susan is an Individual Artist Grant recipient from the Nevada Arts Council and the National Endowment for the Arts; awarded a project grant in Fiscal Year 2023 for her works on demystifying aging. Her series, My Tribe: In Our Aging World, is on exhibition at the Washoe County Administrative Complex from September through December 2023.

Susan’s artwork has been shown in exhibitions in the United States and in Western Europe. In September of 2023 and 2022, she was an exhibitor at Reno Tahoe International Art Show. May of 2022, Susan showed in a two-person exhibition, Blending of Two Minds, at Nevada Fine Arts Gallery. She participated in a three-person 2021 show, Led by Vision at the Sierra Arts Foundation’s Riverside Gallery. Her work was featured on Reno’s PBS “ARTEFFECTS” and has been picked up nationally on other PBS stations.

In 2015, Susan was featured as a demonstrating artist and received an Honorable Mention in painting from the Beverly Hills Art Show, a juried art event that rewards artistic excellence, in Beverly Hills, California.

Susan was a member of Downtown Modernists, Latimer Art Club, Reno Fine Arts Collective and Sierra Arts Foundation. She is represented by the Singulart Gallery and Saatchi Gallery. Recently, one of her paintings was featured in a curated collection on Saatchi’s online gallery. She is a co-founder of the Downtown Modernists. Susan lives and works in Reno, Nevada.

 

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About Bernd

BERND HANDAU, an engineer by trade, has an innate connection with the language of numbers and symbols (circles, triangles, and squares.) Geometric forms are found throughout the universe in science and in nature.

It is fascinating to study the “Golden Ratio” in its relationship to every living thing on the planet and in the cosmos. He uses this knowledge along with his technical skills as a compass to form some of his geometric pieces.

German heritage is also an essential element in Bernd’s artwork. His inspiration is drawn from ancient Teutonic Germanic ancestry. Primitive and tribalism are words that come to mind when viewing his relic infused pieces.

Yet, the work is highly modern and minimalistic in style. Bernd combines his passion for the beauty of science and the mystery of a bygone civilization.

If Bernd’s wooden pieces are ancient in nature, his abstracts are at the opposite of the spectrum of time and can be looked at as futuristic. His abstracts are neon bright and striking to the eye with pops of color. They capture the viewer and whisks them into a landscape that conjures up atmospheric realms and otherworldly images.

“On one hand, my work is a mixture of simple and orderly mathematical forms. On the other hand, viewers can conjure up magical and otherworldly images.”

Bernd has exhibited in local Reno galleries and online galleries during the past three years. February 2023, he participated in the “Cupid’s Curse” at Nevada Fine Arts Gallery. He was part of “Heart of Reno” exhibition in the inaugural Reno Tahoe International Art Show in September of 2022 and 2023. May of 2022, he exhibited in a two-person show, “Blending of Two Minds” at Nevada Fine Arts Gallery. In 2021, he participated in several shows at Sierra Arts Foundation.

Bernd was a member of Downtown Modernists, Latimer Art Club, Reno Fine Arts Collective and Sierra Arts Foundation. Saatchi Gallery represents him. He currently lives and works in Reno, Nevada.