In the Audubon Tradition Exhibition

About Sue Westin

Sue Westin’s artistic journey has been a winding one to where she now stands as the first female painter to be honored with the title of Master in the international Society of Animals Artists. It began at the age of four when she was struck by a car and subsequently confined to a body cast, limiting her activity to hours of drawing. Bambi and families of turtles made with a protractor and crayons were among her favorite subjects. Clearly she loved animals. Her mother recognized talent, and at the age of five, Westin began her first art lessons at the historic Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford, Connecticut. Many who know of Sue Westin today may be surprised to learn that she was juried into the SAA not as a painter but as a stone sculptor.

Over the years Westin has worked in a variety of art mediums: stone, oils, watercolors, theorem painting and recently acrylics. Her works have been exhibited in fine galleries and museums in the U.S. and abroad. They have been juried into numerous SAA and “Birds In Art” exhibitions and their museum tours and are found in the permanent collections of: the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum, the Arizona Sonora Desert Museum, the Laumeister Collection, and the Eugene Worrell Collection.

Today Westin is interested in further experimentation in both mediums and choice of subject. In 1992 Westin spoke at the Robert Tory Peterson Institute on the subject of “A Journey Into The Future”. Over the past thirty years the genre referred to as “wildlife art” has undergone a transition from a primary focus on realistic paintings of game animals to the current trend of portraying a myriad of species, i.e. insects, reptiles, amphibians, sea creatures, etc., in a variety of mediums and styles. Westin’s painting titled “Walking On Ice”, currently on exhibit in “In The Tradition Of Audubon”, represents a major shift occurring both in the field of wildlife art and in her own artistic journey. Westin anticipates that much of her future works will stand out not only for their visual qualities but also for the underlying thoughts and emotions that inspired each creation.

 

 

The Gift Tree

$4600

Oil

24 x 17″

Northern Labrador is a land of transition between boreal forest and barren-ground tundra. The skies are immense and the land desolate, covered in rocks and lichens, brushy willows and scraggly spruce. Food chains are short, due to the limited diversity of species able to survive harsh winters. Old, native Innus understand their relationship to this world that sustains them. Their tradition is that when an Innu kills a caribou, the meat is harvested and what remains is given back to the creatures that share their world. The guts of a slain caribou are left for the bear and wolf. The hooves and backbone are draped in the spruce trees for birds, such as the Gray Jay shown in this painting. What I saw there did not strike me as something gruesome but rather as something beautiful and sacred.

How to Purchase
To purchase this artwork please email the name of the piece you want along with the artist’s name.
EMAIL TO:
Erica Wainwright
Cincinnati Museum Center

Death of a Cyborg

$1400

Oil

10 x 8″

The American Kestrel, our smallest falcon, preys small creatures, including insects. Here a kestrel clutches a Shadow Darner dragonfly. The unusual thing about this scene is that the insect is also a cyborg, a part natural and part cybernetic organism.

During Audubon’s time cyborgs did not exist; however, today cyborg dragonflies are a reality. Scientists have developed tiny, solar-powered backpacks which deliver pulses of light into the nerve cords of genetically altered dragonflies, enabling remote navigation of the insect. Use of cyborg insects could include: reconnaissance, search and rescue operations, environmental assessment of ecosystems, wild animal behavior, and, eventually, the pollination of plants. Cyborg bees?

How will wildlife react to slightly odd-looking insects? Will birds and fish eat them? Will normal insects try to mate with these anomalies? What will be the consequences? Like Audubon, we will be

How to Purchase
To purchase this artwork please email the name of the piece you want along with the artist’s name.
EMAIL TO:
Erica Wainwright
Cincinnati Museum Center

Walking On Ice

$8000

Mixed

30 x 20″

“Walking On Ice” has been an artistic adventure. In this painting a caddisfly nymph is shown walking upside down on the underside of thin ice amid an abstract arrangement of frozen methane bubbles. The subject is far from my usual … and the creative process was 90% experimental. To create the desired affect, I experimented with different types of acrylic paints, including iridescents, and with acrylic gels and mixing mediums. I explored various ways to add brilliance, adding bits of silver metal leaf to the bubbles and a few touches of gilded 24K gold to the sunlit insect and its portable cocoon made of marsh debris.
For myself, learning about caddisflies was a discovery process. I was unfamiliar with caddisflies as popular bait in fly fishing. What I also did not know is that caddisfly nymphs are used in research to develop waterproof surgical adhesives. In addition, as “canaries in a coal mine”, they are used for determining rapid assessment of watershed quality and contamination after hazardous spills.
The world is changing and so is the field of animal art. What had previously been disregarded is now being considered and rethought. Today both artists and laypeople are realizing that all life matters and that beauty lies often in the unexpected, unusual and the formerly overlooked.

How to Purchase
To purchase this artwork please email the name of the piece you want along with the artist’s name.
EMAIL TO:
Erica Wainwright
Cincinnati Museum Center

Roseate

$3300 Sold

Mixed

14 x 20″

“Walking On Ice” has been an artistic adventure. In this painting a caddisfly nymph is shown walking upside down on the underside of thin ice amid an abstract arrangement of frozen methane bubbles. The subject is far from my usual … and the creative process was 90% experimental. To create the desired affect, I experimented with different types of acrylic paints, including iridescents, and with acrylic gels and mixing mediums. I explored various ways to add brilliance, adding bits of silver metal leaf to the bubbles and a few touches of gilded 24K gold to the sunlit insect and its portable cocoon made of marsh debris.
For myself, learning about caddisflies was a discovery process. I was unfamiliar with caddisflies as popular bait in fly fishing. What I also did not know is that caddisfly nymphs are used in research to develop waterproof surgical adhesives. In addition, as “canaries in a coal mine”, they are used for determining rapid assessment of watershed quality and contamination after hazardous spills.
The world is changing and so is the field of animal art. What had previously been disregarded is now being considered and rethought. Today both artists and laypeople are realizing that all life matters and that beauty lies often in the unexpected, unusual and the formerly overlooked.

How to Purchase
To purchase this artwork please email the name of the piece you want along with the artist’s name.
EMAIL TO:
Erica Wainwright
Cincinnati Museum Center

In the Audubon Tradition: Birds of a Feather

In the Audubon Tradition honors the contributions of artist and educator John A. Ruthven—and presents a select group of elite contemporary artists inspired by the work of John James Audubon.
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