Artist Statement
Like a bird on the wire
Like a drunk in a midnight choir I have tried in my way to be free- Leonard Cohen, Bird on A Wire
My paintings and ceramic sculptures are informed by art historical figures from the past, mostly female artists, telling their stories to a contemporary audience. Personal narratives are a carnival of intrigue, informed by lustrous myths as much as hard truths. As we puzzle out the dazzling complexity of another’s story, or our own, we learn compassion and empathy and reverence for the human condition.
I have an affinity, in temperament and truth-telling, for artists such as Frida Kahlo, Leonora Carrington, and Tamara de Lempicka - women who broke the mold and created their own myths from their complicated lives, transforming adversity into artistic freedom.
In 2024, I set out on a purposeful pilgrimage to the Amalfi Coast in Italy to find the secluded home of the late Vali Myers near Positano. An expat Australian artist, Myers was called the ‘queen of bohemia’ and she lived for 40 years in a tiny house only 3 meters square styled like a Moroccan summer pavilion, with a rich flame red interior like a jewel box. Being inside felt like a temple for my spirit.
Fortunately, Vali’s bereaved partner, the poet Gianni Menichetti, allowed me the unexpected privilege of staying the night in Vali’s former bed. As the room shrouded to night, I lay there transfixed in a spool of vivid dreams. That memory still holds me in a trance.
Life is both fantastical and what you make of it. A wild ride and flowing dance. A transcendent dream brought into form. My art is intended to speak to the hope and effervescence and dreamlike potential that is at the heart of everyone’s character. Never seeing people as just one thing, one self, one story but as a kaleidoscope of possibilities, forever flowing.
Biography
Suzy Birstein works in the tradition of narrative portraiture and magic realism, drawing on an intimate appreciation for the art historical role of women as both artist’s muse and creative agent.
Birstein’s early work, widely collected, focused on functional pottery in a punk brutalist form with an overlay of colourful, neo-classical imagery. In 2009, Birstein organized a biannual series of ceramic sculpture workshops, Mia Muse, in Skopelos, Greece which continued for a decade, allowing her frequent visits to Greek temples and shrines and museums throughout Europe.
During this period of intrepid discovery, Birstein paid attention to how male artists portrayed the presence of women in their work - as figurative subjects and model muses. Witnessing Velázquez’s Las Meninas in Madrid, with its iconic frieze of female subjects, proved pivotal to Birstein’s artistic direction. And her close observation of the caryatids, or korai, of ancient Greece - finely-wrought statuary representations of ‘fair maidens’ - lead her to reflect on the veneration of ordinary women and the enduring mystique of the muse and enchantress.
In 2017, Birstein initiated an ongoing series of figurative sculptures and paintings - Ladies-Not-Waiting - representing pivotal historical artists that prove fertile ground for stories, myths, coded references and private memories. Embellished with allegorical ornamentation - elements such as flowers, birds, fantastical creatures and personal mementoes - Birstein’s intricately-styled sculptures are riddles of meaning and delight. In Hebrew, Birstein’s name, Tsipora, translates as ‘bird’, and symbols of freedom and also nesting - both wild-eyed caprice and careful craft - are evidenced throughout her series. Both in Birstein’s paintings and sculptures, her visionary reimagination of artists such as Frida Kahlo and Leonora Carrington transforms queenly presences into fecund parables about how women create their own myths and how those myths become their ultimate freedom.
Made of sensuous clay, Birstein’s sculptures are hand-built and fired multiple times. The surfaces are layered and textured through the application of oxides, glazes and lustres. The process is intuitive and open to surprise. Post-firing, Birstein may apply cold wax and oil paints to heighten the texturality and vivacity of the work. Each piece is a revelation in the making. Birstein also makes use of her sculptural figures as subjects and characters in her paintings; the two disciplines, ceramics and painting, are in constant dialogue, continually informing and influencing the story and mystique of her work.
Birstein has participated in over 75 solo and group exhibitions in Canada, Mexico, the US, Europe and Japan, receiving extensive media coverage. Her sculptures have been featured at the Gardiner Museum in Toronto, the Clay Studio in Montana, and the Art Brut ‘Diva’ exhibit in France. In 2008, Birstein was commissioned to create Motion Pitchers, a series of individual sculptures presented as gifts to Academy Award film nominees. In 2014, the Vancouver Tap Society commissioned a series of unique ceramic slippers for their annual ’Tap Grace Awards’. Birstein’s narrative-based solo exhibitions - including When I Have Wings To Fly; Tsipora: A Place To Land; and Ladies Not Waiting - have been exhibited at the POMO Arts Centre, Zack Gallery and the Amelia Douglas Gallery. Her upcoming solo retrospective of paintings and sculptural work, Enchantress, curated by Dr. Angela Clark, will be at Il Museo in Vancouver in 2026, sponsored by the Italian Cultural Centre.
Suzy Birstein (b. 1951, Toronto) earned an honours graduate degree in Ceramics from Emily Carr University, studying under Sally Michener and Geoff Rees. She lives in Vancouver with her husband Hartley and teaches young artists at Arts Umbrella on Granville Island. She maintains a studio practice in the historic 1000 Parker Building in East Vancouver.