About

Susan Thacker is a New York artist, raised in Los Angeles and Rome.  She graduated UCLA, as a writing major, which led to various positions in the television, film, and music industries. Her profession of choice, however, became wife and mother to three. In between carpools, she still wrote stories, but increasingly gravitated toward painting. Soon after studying art and technique, she began to teach art to children, first at her own children’s schools, then later at art institutions, like SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture) and Otis College of Art and Design.

She painted at night when the house went quiet. Before long, her art began to garner attention and she was invited to exhibit in galleries. A seminal moment in her career was an artist residency in Big Sur, every artist’s dream.  That trajectory was interrupted when her 27-year marriage unraveled. She left Los Angeles and moved to the Central Coast of California, to begin again in Carmel.  In 2015, after a serious battle with cancer, she moved to New York, where she lives in Manhattan with her partner, photographer Eugene Merinov, and works out of a studio house in the Hudson Valley

“I was a writer before becoming a painter, but I drew as many pictures in the margins of my paper as words on the page. Painting liberated me from a linear narrative structure.  Besides, some stories have no ending; others have many. My work is an intuitive response to the personal, cultural, and moral questions of our day. They are stories told with symbols, design, color and emotion that read differently each time they are viewed. In the aerial series, I hover over different crowds like a bird, to sense clues from their clothing, or hints as to why they collect or disperse. In other work, I submerge myself below the surface to explore the underbelly of my imagination.  Teaching art and architecture to children greatly informed my style. Children naturally render what they see from multiple vantage points, much like fusing “plan” and “elevation” drawings. My art reflects the struggle of expressing multiple points of view simultaneously.”

-Susan Thacker

ARTIST CV

Education:

  • 1999-2004 Otis College of Art and Design

  • 1995-1998 Mission Renaissance Fine Art

  • 1983-1986 UCLA Extension, Interior Design

  • 1970-1974 UCLA, BA, Creative Writing

Teaching:

1998-2005

  • Otis College of Art and Design, 

  • Founder, Instructor of Children’s Art Program

  • Otis College of Art and Design,

  • Instructor, Otis Evening College

2001-2003

  • Boys and Girls Club of Venice

2002

  • Corbis L.A., Curator, photojournalism project and exhibit 

  • Boys and Girls Club of Venice, and Otis School of Art

1995-1997

  • SCI-Arc (Southern California Institute of Architecture)

  • Founder, instructor, Kids-Arc (architecture for children)

Related Work Experience:

1997-2004

The Buckley School, Los Angeles

  • Theatrical set design and painting for productions including “Fiddler on the Roof,” “The Music Man,” “Cabaret,” “Our Town,” “Anything Goes,” “The Man Who Came to Dinner.”

1985-1997

  • Volunteer Art teacher, Los Angeles Unified School District

Exhibitions:

  • 2023 - “Stuffed” NYC group show,

  • 2015 - Everybody’s Ocean, Santa Cruz Museum of Art, group show, Santa Cruz, Ca.

  • 2013 - The Lips Project, solo show, The Church gallery, Monterey, Ca.

  • 2013 - Fresh Canvas, Museum of Flying, Santa Monica, Ca.

  • 2012 - Carmel Art Institute, solo show, Carmel, Ca.

  • 2011 - Flows to Bay, Museum of Monterey, group show, Monterey, Ca

  • 2011 - Carmel Art Institute, Group show, Carmel, Ca.

  • 2011 - Notre Combat, War Memorial Museum, Caen, France

  • 2010 - Our Struggle: Responding to Mein Kampf, Contemporary Jewish Museum, San Francisco 

  • 2011 - Gina Berschneider Showroom, La Cienega Design District, West Hollywood, Ca.

  • 2010 - Over and Above, Studio Arts Gallery, solo show, Laguna Beach, Ca.

  • 2009 - Group show, Ventana Inn, Big Sur, Ca.

  • 2009 - Found Object Sculpture, group show, Sand City, Ca.

  • 2008 - Solo show, The Phoenix Shop at Nepenthe, Big Sur, Ca 

  • 2007 - New Work, solo show, Anderson/Miguel Fine Art, Healdsburg, Ca.

  • 2007 - Group show, Unitard Gallery, Downtown L.A.

  • 2006 - Big Sur Artist Residency, Solo show, Big Sur, Calif.

  • 2005 - Red Light/Green Light, Lauryn Taylor Gallery, Carmel, Ca.

  • 2004 - “Bridgin’ the Gap” group show at the Glasshouse, Pomona, Ca.

  • 2004 - Evolution: The Process of Abstraction, group show, Bolsky Gallery, Otis College of Art and Design, L.A.

  • 2004 - “Home Is Where The Art Is,” solo show, L.A, Ca.

  • 2003 - G.A.S., Group show, Highland Grounds Gallery, Hollywood, Ca.