Susiehyer has been drawing and painting since she was a child. “I remember drawing a pair of ceramic flamingos my mother used to keep on her dining room table when I was four years old”, she says. “I knew from that moment I would be an artist when I grew up.”
Born Susan Lynn Hyer in 1954, and known by the moniker Susiehyer, she was fortunate to have multiple art classes in both primary and secondary public education. Attending art programs at Moravian College, The Baum School of Art, and the University of West Florida in the 1970’s, she continues to study and expand her repertoire and abilities, attending the Art Students League of Denver and participating in workshops whenever she can, with artists such as Quang Ho, Kim English, Ron Hicks, Jay Moore, and Kevin Weckback. In 2001 she also completed the Denver Botanical Gardens Certificate in Botanical Art and Illustration.
This award winning artist has been working professionally since 1976 and has been the recipient of a number of scholarships, grants, and awards for her work, including two international design awards. Her work has appeared in numerous galleries and national exhibitions, hangs in many private and corporate collections, and has been published in the celebrated books Art of the National Parks: Historical Connections, Contemporary Interpretations and Landscapes of Colorado. Susiehyer’s work has also been featured in Southwest Art Magazine, Fine Art Connoisseur Magazine, Art of the West Magazine, Plein Air Magazine, and on the covers of Art Life, Evergreen Living, and Mountain Country Life. Most recently she was included in the American Art Collector Series of books. She has been a National Vice President of the Women’s Caucus for Art, President of the New Orleans Chapter, and is a member of Oil Painters of America , the American Impressionist Society, Laguna Plein Air Painters , Plein Air Artist of Colorado, and Plein Air Painters of Hawaii .
Susiehyer maintains a home, studio, and multiple gardens in Evergreen, Co where she lives with her husband, sometimes one or two grown children, a dog, two cats, and numerous elk, deer, and other wildlife. She continues to push herself in new directions and challenge herself artistically, traveling to paint “en plein air” (outdoors/on location), and working from sketches, field studies, and photos in the studio. Painting trips outside of Colorado usually include Grand Canyon, Zion National Park and southern Utah, Sedona, Taos, California and Hawaii. And when the right opportunity arises, there is international travel as well…..Mexico, Tahiti, Belize, Corsica, France, Portugal. She teaches workshops out of her studio in Evergreen and is an invited juror for local and and national exhibits.
To view Susiehyer’s work, click here.