By Carlisle Bilbo | Council on Culture & Arts
From St. Petersburg, Florida, Susan Antoinette returns to Tallahassee to expand her conversation on our shared and unique journeys through her featured work alongside regional artists in LeMoyne Arts’ Mapped Journeys in Color and Verse exhibition. As an abstract expressionist multi-media painter and avid traveler, Antoinette uses her artistic focus on flexibility and exploration to connect with each viewer through the shared experiences of living different lives.
Before calling herself an artist, Antoinette describes herself as an educator and an explorer on a “wonderfully nonlinear” artistic journey. Her art practice began with intentional time in the studio, balanced alongside her day job as an Exceptional Student Educator (ESE) in private practice and her time spent traveling. Through intentionally sought opportunities, Antoine continues to advance her self-taught practice, including studies with the Art League in Alexandria, VA, and the Student Art League in New York. Her artistic practice is driven by curiosity and continued learning, not just of art technique but of people, places, and cultures. Place, experience, and relationship are Antoinette’s favorite concepts to explore as a means to deepen her artistic practice and to learn more and experience more of the world outside of her comfort zone. For her, “art isn’t a separate road” but part of a bigger life that continues to grow as she does.
As her work reflects, Antoinette’s journeys never leave her. The geography, culture, environment, and identity of the places she visits and lives in accumulate into the driving force that shapes her artistic practice and her identity as an artist. An explorer cannot adhere to rigidity but must embrace spontaneity and curiosity. For her, this is an echo of her daily work. As she privately teaches students who learn differently, she is certain that there is no one way to experience anything. Antoinette believes it is her responsibility as the artist to convey an experience rather than a retelling of a single event, leading her to create work in an abstract manner. She explains her draw to abstract art as a means “to explore memory, movement, tension, and connection without being limited by literal representation. [Abstract art] allows viewers to bring their own histories and emotions into the work, so the conversation becomes personal for each viewer.”
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