Susan Parker’s solo exhibition, My Element, features work from her recent water series. Almost all the paintings in this series were started and developed aboard Parker’s “alternate studio,” a fully functional, classic wooden boat with a view of San Francisco Bay. An avid sailor with 35 years’ experience racing on the bay and a studio overlooking Islais Creek, Parker has the privilege of an intimate relationship with the sea. Her stored recollections of marine conditions are continually refreshed, refueled, and augmented every time she goes sailing on the Bay. Each painting in the My Element series shows a different side of her muse’s personality.

In 2021, Parker shifted her primary focus from creating large, low-relief, color-saturated surfaces to painting the very element she has spent so much time in: water. She sees painting water as a thrilling challenge and considers this series with a wide range of styles to be experimental as she teaches herself to capture the beauty in mystery of the ocean and of San Francisco Bay in particular. Provocative middle distance horizon lines and naïvely painted dancing waves invite the viewer to come to their own conclusions. Some paintings resemble a blue desert of cracked earth. And some capture the dancing reflection of the sun, creating patterns akin to radio waves.

Parker started painting at a young age when she joined her mother in drawing and painting classes. She enrolled in Hampshire College just one year after the experimental liberal arts institution opened, studying under the School of Arts and Humanities. In 1979 she received a summer scholarship to the Academy of Art in San Francisco. There she focused on painting, drawing, plein air watercolors, and experimented with realism, abstraction, and mixed media painting, challenging herself to acquire new skills and techniques.

Parker grew up sailing with her parents and siblings, all of whom loved boats and being on the water. When she arrived in San Francisco in 1979, the lure was not only the invitation to attend the Academy of Art, but also to live in a city noted for its sailing opportunities. In the early 1980s, she and her partner started participating in local, low-key sailing events commonly known as “beer can races.” By the late 80s, they had joined a local, competitive, One Design racing fleet and they continue to be active and passionate participants.