My studio practice centers on the poetics of space, perception, and the relationship between place and human feeling. I consider my work to be landscape-based, with an understanding that landscape encompasses natural and built environments, small details and large expanses. Prints in these portfolios utilize representation and abstraction, explore private spaces as well as public or shared spaces, and connect to individual memory and geological record. These works are rooted in the materials and processes of print. For me, printmaking provides a structure and a process-rich foundation from which to build images that are quiet and contemplative, subtle in surface and nuanced in color. Harmonies and resonance of color are central, as I consider ways color creates space into the page and connects to sensorial perceptions, emotion, and memory. Making my work is a meditation on the spaces perceived around us, and color helps sustain these meditations and brings these sensitivities into the work.

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Susan Belau received her B.A. in Studio Art from University of California, Santa Cruz, and M.F.A. in Printmaking from University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She has studied printmaking at Santa Reparata in Florence, Italy, and trained as a master printer at Paulson-Bott Press in Berkeley, California. Ms. Belau has received the Phelan Award for Excellence in Printmaking and been awarded fellowships at Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, California and Women’s Studio Workshop, Rosendale, New York. Ms. Belau is a faculty member at San Francisco State University and in 2014 chaired the SGC International Printmaking Conference in San Francisco, California. Her work is in private and public collections throughout the United States, including University of the Arts, Philadelphia, the Ford Foundation, and the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.