Susan Andreasen is a painting artist who embraced that calling in the first two years of her infancy, and who has never lived to be anything else. She expresses her art on canvas in her own way, never yielding to convention or emulation, but always putting on canvas the portrayal of the subject that her perception and awareness demand. She makes the picture be what she sees it to be, in a way that no mindless camera can. If only cameras could only record true pictures, the truths of human perception and impression would never be known.

In the first two years of her life, Susan was caught up in the painting sessions of her Mother, Ruth Andreasen, and in the naturalist wild life interests and outdoor pursuits of her Father, in the country living in Massachusetts, with 3 week annual vacations into the Maine Shore every year for 20 years. I. Andrew Andreasen, the Father, a well-known Electrical Engineer, imbued her with a profound love of all animal life and the natural environment that sustains it. Ruth Andreasen studied seven years in the Rochester, N.Y. Memorial Museum and was a scholarship graduate of Pratt Institute. For Several years she was a designer for Williamsburg Publishing Company, and instructor in watercolor and oil of the Art League of Winston-Salem, N.C. and has had several one-woman shows: in Rochester Memorial Art Gallery, Marblehead, Mass., and Winston-Salem, N.C., Fanwood, N.J and has exhibited widely in National and Regional exhibitions and in traveling exhibitions, and in leading Museums and galleries.

By the time she was 16, Susan was showing paintings in the local areas of northern New Jersey, receiving some initial recognition. But her talents were not exclusively confined to wildlife subjects. In fact, after graduating from the Parson School of Design in New York City at the age of 20, she was engaged at the Fairchild Publications as a fashion illustrator, developing her fine art talents at home and by illustrations for other publications. She also became proficient in the field of advertising art, but devoted four years as well to ecological observation and painting through coastal travels and marine life observations.

In establishing herself, Susan was not indifferent to charitable organizations, which have great propensities toward artistic expression. She has subsidized with donated and commissioned art works such organizations as Friends of the Sea Otters, Earth Island Institute, Save the Manatee Club, Southern Appalachian Biodiversity Project, Greater Yellowst5one Coalition, The Palm Beach Zoo, The Brevard Zoo, and the Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution.

Her wide range of interest and concern is further shown by her activity also with corporate clients such as Fidelity Federal Bank and Trust Co., Boca Raton Hotel & Resort Club, Office Depot, American Egg Board for the Easter Egg Hunt at the White House, and Norton Museum of Art.

Some especially challenging and rewarding experiences in Susan’s Ecoart were found in representing the State of Florida for the American Egg Board for two years, creating a specialty in portrayals of Manatees and Flamingos from the eggs. She also lectured at the Norton Museum of Art, at West Palm Beach and the Boca Museum of Art, Boca Raton, on her philosophy of environmental art as follows:

The Philosophy of ECOART

In the Twentieth First Century, man and art have become alienated from nature. By denying nature, man denies a part of himself. Twenty First Century Art, by also denying nature, denies man access to a portion of Himself, preventing man from realizing his full potential.

As an “Ecoartist,” Susan M. Andreasen has reversed this trend. She has two goals. First, she wants art museums, and the “Art World”, to recognize wildlife art and art reflecting nature as “Art”, and to accept wildlife and nature art in contemporary art museums, not just natural history museums. Secondly, she wants to raise awareness of endangered species and humanity’s destruction of the environment, and therefore, its destruction of itself.

Susan has attained her goal by fusing wildlife art and contemporary art into a new form that she calls “Ecoart”. She believes that the techniques and Ideas of contemporary art can, and should, be applied to the subject matter of Wildlife art. By portraying wildlife in a contemporary manner, she has raised Public awareness of the needs of the environment and hopes to break down the barrier between, “Wildlife”, and “Fine Art”. She has been working with environmental organizations and scientists to help promote the environment, and I believe that publicity from art and the proceeds from the sale of art can be used to help raise consciousness about the environment and money for environmental causes.