Susie Zol’s Art | Letting a Painting Figure Itself Out
Sometimes, Susie Zol paints in the space between intuition and intention. One instinct, one plan, and a whole lot of trust that they'll sort themselves out on the canvas. The result: work that feels loose and lived-in, never overworked. Come see what happens when she just lets it happen.
ARTISTS
8/12/20264 min read
Susie Zol is a San Diego painter who has built an entire practice around noticing things most of us walk right past. Working out of her studio in Liberty Station, she makes layered, richly colored abstract paintings built up with paint, paper, and fabric. Pieces that swing from wild and bold to calm and inviting, sometimes within the same body of work.
This feature is spotlighting Susie Zol's figure paintings. Her figure paintings trade precise likeness for something looser and more felt, half-glimpsed forms that read more like a mood than a portrait. Nothing about them is trying to convince you of anything. They just ask you to stick around a little longer, which, it turns out, is a very effective strategy.
Ask her how a painting starts and you won't get a tidy answer, because there isn't one. Susie works from intuition first, color, mark, gut instinct, whatever shows up and lets intention catch up later, usually just enough to keep a piece from spiraling into total chaos. She's written about this exact tug-of-war on her blog, calling it a "balance" she's still practicing rather than something she's mastered. Which, honestly, tracks. The paintings look like they know exactly what they're doing. The process behind them is a lot more "let's see what happens."
That's not a lack of discipline, it's the discipline. Susie treats painting as an act of paying attention, not a sprint to a finished image. She's the type to notice the mood of a room or the way light does something interesting for exactly four seconds, then carry that feeling back to the studio instead of a photo of it. The paintings aren't records of what a place looked like. They're translations of what it felt like to be standing there, which is a much harder thing to fake.
Susie doesn't stay in one lane, and honestly, why would she. Paintings get top billing, but she's also elbow-deep in ceramics and keeps an active art journaling practice going on the side. The kind of low-stakes, 20-minutes-a-day experimenting that quietly feeds the bigger canvases later. She once gave herself a 25-day creative challenge just to see what would happen.
Her subject matter wanders, too, and she's fine with that. One painting reads as a loose floral. Another has a figure half-hiding in the brushwork. Some pieces are just color and gesture, no figure required. She moves between abstract and figurative like it's not a big decision, because to her, it isn't. The surface changes, the same attentive, slightly restless hand stays in charge.
She also made the move from mostly festival booths to a proper studio and gallery presence at Liberty Station, a transition she's described on her blog with the kind of honesty that skips the humble-brag and just says: this is where the work lives now, come see it. If you've only ever met Susie Zol on Instagram, this is your sign that the paintings look even better in person, which, to be fair, is true of most good things.
And she's not exactly hiding out in the studio, either. Her work has shown at Woodward Contemporary, Escondido Arts Partnership, Front Porch Gallery, Las Laguna Art Gallery, and Ashton Gallery, with pieces represented at Art Santa Fe and ArtExpo NY through Jen Tough Gallery. She's a regular at San Diego's ArtWalk festivals in Little Italy and Liberty Station. She took first place at the San Diego County Fair Fine Art Division. She has been profiled by San Diego Voyager, CanvasRebel, Shoutout SoCal, and the San Diego Union-Tribune. Plus Susie has a spot in the book Abstract Painting for Today's Contemporary Artist.
Original paintings from Susie Zol range from about $500 for smaller works up to $3,400 for large-scale statement pieces (her biggest canvases run 48"x48"), with plenty of mid-size options in the $700–$2,200 range depending on size and complexity. Her hand-built ceramics are a more approachable entry point, running $145–$350 for bowls, vessels, and sculptural pieces. Everything is available directly through her website, where new work drops regularly. Susie also runs occasional sales on the "Treasure Trove" page for reduced-price originals. Want to see the work in person, ask about a commission, or just say hi? Reach Susie at susiezolart@gmail.com or visit her studio first Fridays at 2730 Historic Decatur Rd, Studio 213, San Diego, CA 92106. You can shop and browse her full catalog at susiezol.com, and follow her day-to-day studio life on Instagram (@susie_zol), Pinterest (@SusieZol), and Facebook (susiezolart).