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Barnett on steps

Barnett Suskind, an American artist, was born and raised in New York City. He came to art as a child making objects. He committed himself to art after studying art history at Bradley University and studio art at New York University. Starting with abstract sculpture and migrating to abstract painting, his focus is always been using art as a vehicle for communication.

Through this focus, he turned to the figure and the face for the emotive quality found in each. Suskind, a keen individual, and social observer, uses gestural brushstrokes to create images of portraits and large nudes. These works focus on what he calls “states of being”, eliciting and enabling communication of emotional and political commentary.

artist statement

I believe the artist has the opportunity and consequently the responsibility to communicate. The nature of that communication is personal to and defined by the artist.

As an artist, I began painting in minimal abstraction focusing on perception and communication. My first solo show was called chromatic consonants concentrating on perception and the emotional response to the physiological as well as psychological variables of color and texture.

These paintings were extremely minimal and consequently, I was consistently challenged by the desire, opportunity and responsibility to communicate—always asking “how does the audience relate to this work and how does this work relate to my audience”.

I ultimately concluded that getting closer to one’s self allows you to get closer to your audience and universality.

As I continued to explore visual vehicles of communication I have moved beyond abstraction looking to explore the personal perceptions and the emotions of reality through the incorporation of the figure and face as mediums of visual speech. Our reality is swayed by society and has influenced me to make statements to seek the truth, to effect clarity and authenticity beyond the tripe of media.

This can be clearly seen in my current series the Spring Series, as well as the Venus Nudes, the Narrative paintings and the imaginary Portraits of Every Man whose faces are used as a conduit for an emotional interaction between the viewer and the painting.

Ultimately all of the explorations are manifestations of a desire for communion with self and hopefully with the audience.

– Barnett Suskind

course of life

1976

White Columns Gallery

East Village, NYC, NY

Group Show

1977

Gloria Cortella Gallery

NYC, NY

“Color Field Abstract Paintings”

Group Show

1978

M 13 NYC, NY

Group Show

1979

Moreno Art Gallery

NYC, NY

“Chromatic Consonants”

Solo Show

1980

Sand Gallery

57 Street, NYC, NY

Group Show

1980 – Current

Involved with various different business opportunities.

1984 – 1990

President KSI International, an international fashion consulting firm.

1990 – Current

Chairman CEO ITF Global Partners an international boutique financial advisory firm.

2004

Recruited to run a stem cell research and clinical initiative. During this period I led the research group at NYU’s labs for the development of proprietary materials and methods for the remediation of dilated cardiomyopathy.

2005

Co-founder and President, STEM CELL RESEARCH AND THERAPEUTICS, using the proprietary methods materials developed at NYU and at Singapore Heart Hospital for the remediation of dilated cardiomyopathy using this proprietary material.

2006

Commenced the world’s first human trial employing the proprietary materials and methods for the remediation of dilated cardiomyopathy with significant patient improvement.

2007 – 2014

Led the world’s first human trial for the remediation of ischemic heart disease. A three-arm study to determine the efficacy of the formulation in end-stage patients. Contemporaneously I continued to paint and show privately.

2015

X Contemporary Art Fair

Art Basel / Miami, Florida

Willoughby Art Advisory

Banksy, Basquiat,

Cyril Christo & Marie Wilkinson,

Peter Dayton, HUSH, Robert Mapplethorpe,

Steve Miller, Barnett Suskind

2018

July 14 – Aug 10

Willoughby Arts

Accabonac Road

East Hampton NY

“Summer Camp, Montauk – Accabonac”

Group Show

2019 Dec 3 – Dec 7

Willoughby Gallery

Essex House

1001 Collins Avenue

South Beach, Miami

“South Beach Show – Art Basel”

Barnett Suskind & William Rand

2019 June 15

Guild Hall Museum

East Hampton, NY

Planned Parenthood Gala/Exhibition

2019 June 14

Keyes Art Gallery

45 Main Street, at the American Hotel

Sag Harbor, NY

Planned Parenthood Group Show

2020

Jan 2 – Jan 28

Salomon Arts Contemporary

Tribeca, NYC

“Winter Solstice”

Group Show

The Anchorage of the Nude
By Robert C. Morgan
Paintings by Barnett Suskind Robert C. Morgan Conventionally, an artist’s monograph represents a survey over a significant duration in which we see the development of the subject’s career from an earlier formative period to a more mature period. An artist’s monograph...
Lost And Found Souls
By Peter Frank
We humans are hard-wired to recognize and respond to the face. Uniquely blessed (or, perhaps, burdened) among sentient beings with a part of our body that betrays our deepest feelings and sensations, we regard the visages of others at once as reflections of our own...
On Barnett's Paintings
By Jan Castro
In their paintings of voluptuous female nudes, both Peter Paul Rubens and Barnett Suskind evoke the Venus of Willendorf, a fertility goddess in ancient times. While Rubens used his young wife Helene as a model and often used real women as models, Suskind’s women take...
Barnett Suskind Interview
By Jan Castro
Barnett Suskind: Mirroring Emotions Interview by Jan Garden Castro In their paintings of voluptuous female nudes, both Peter Paul Rubens and Barnett Suskind evoke the Venus of Willendorf, a fertility goddess in ancient times. While Rubens used his young wife Helène as...
Notes from the Artist
By Barnett Suskind
Notes on The Abstract: As an artist, I have found the challenge with abstract painting is how to eliminate image while maintaining the emotional content and communication I believe is imperative to art. I paint and have painted in many different ways-styles– all the...
Critics Comments
By Donald Kuspit
“Suskind restores opulence to the female body, and with that dignity”. “Surveying the centuries old history of female nude imagery, one realizes that the only precedent for them (Suskind nudes) is the prehistoric fertility goddess, most famously the Venus of...
Introductory Remarks
By Donald Kuspit
Barnett Suskind—especially the female nude body, usually as seen through the male eye—is perhaps the oldest in the history of art. With good reason: it conveys our concern with the condition of our own bodies—our fundamental body narcissism, one might say, recalling...
The Big Venus Update: Barnett Suskinds Paintings
By Donald Kuspit
There seemed to me in the nodding of the faceless but carefully coiffed head, in the gentle folding of her graceful arms over the huge, pendulous breasts such an expression of serene pride; in the dimpled rolls of fat over her belly and hips, in the enormous buttocks...