Painter Suzy Spence: The Hunt, the Bride, and the Widow

[upbeat music] Susie Spence doesn't want to talk about identity.

She doesn't want to talk about feminism, really.

She just wants to talk about painting.

And let me tell you, this woman can paint.

Again, I happened upon her work by mistake, and sometimes those are the best discoveries.

But I was in Vermont for the summer, where my parents live, and she came to a talk that I did, introduced herself, and I looked her up and thought, "Huh, what's going on here?" Turned out she had a show at the Bundy Museum in Warren, Vermont, and so I went over to see what her work was all about.

It's bold.

It is strongly feminist.

There are these female figures who are kind of like guides for us, widows, brides, their identity slightly tied up in who they are or are not married to.

They're strong.

They're engaging with the viewer.

And then she also has this other narrative all about the hunt.

So whether it's f-fox hunts or equestrian kind of themes, there's a story here that's being woven together about who's being chased and who's being hunted, and who is the victim versus who is the victor.

And the work, the painting itself is heavy.

It's dense.

It drips with the weight of its own making.

These paintings stay with you.

They're so strong that they kind of burrow.

And our conversation was similarly dense.

I don't think I even scratched the surface with Susie.

I think there's so much more that she's got to give in terms of a conversation about painting, a conversation about being a woman who paints, and conversation about a history of landscape painting and pastoral painting if you're a woman.

So if you feel like crunching on all that with us, tune in.

This is a good one.