Susan Jane Walp

Walp was born in Allentown, Pennsylvania, on September 7, 1948. She studied art at Mount Holyoke College (BA, 1970) and a Boston University summer program, where she first worked with painter Lennart Anderson, a longtime mentor and friend, who taught her a painting approach grounded in tonal relationships. She undertook further studies at the New York Studio School, with Nicholas Carone, the Skowhegan School, and the Brooklyn College MFA program. ==Career==

Walp has exhibited in solo shows at galleries including Fischbach and Tibor de Nagy in New York City, Pamela Salisbury in Hudson, New York, Her work has also appeared at the American Academy, Denver Art Museum, Jaffe-Friede Gallery of Dartmouth College, Naples Museum of Art and National Academy Museum, among other venues. Her iconography is enigmatic, consisting of arrangements of objects without functional relationships to one another. Her compositions frequently employ a complex geometry of secondary shapes and objects revolving around a central, often circular, element. She sometimes compresses space in way that equalizes meticulously detailed objects and minimal, rougher backgrounds, creating a tension between intimate naturalism and artifice (e.g., Melon Sliced Open on a Black Plate with Knife, 2015). Walp's art is held in the public collections of the Hood Museum of Art, National Academy Museum and Sheldon Museum of Art, among others. ==References==