Meeting Awareness: Oil paintings by Susan Watson

Exhibition Dates: January 9^th – 31^st, 2026

Opening Reception: Friday, January 16^th from 4:30 – 7:00 p.m.

Meeting Awareness is a series by painter Susan Watson that includes eight large close-up oil paintings of faces. The main intention of the series is to use portraiture to dive deeply into what it means to meet someone directly, to connect with their awareness, reality and being, through the medium of oil paint. Each painting is meant to be an offering of a meditative experience through an intimate meeting with an apparent “other”.

Susan Watson was born and raised in Juneau. After living out of state she moved back in 2023. Since 2014, she has used painting to explore the essence of awareness —what it is, how it expresses itself — as well as the feeling of recognition that can be experienced when gazing into the eyes of another. She has been painting with oils for over 30 years and deeply loves the beauty and alchemy the medium offers.

With this series, Susan painted from photographs she took of family, friends, and acquaintances. Each painting called for a slightly different approach, and each painting was intended to be more “real” than the photograph. The intention was not to be more “photorealistic” but rather, more alive. The large scale of the paintings requires the viewer’s entire field of vision and thus encourages an even more direct and deeply intimate meeting. To appreciate these qualities, the paintings need to be seen in person.