Artist Bio

Suzy Kopf is a multidisciplinary artist who scrutinizes the paper ephemera of midcentury consumer culture to probe the enduring mythos of the American Dream. Through water media paintings, collages and site-specific installations she excavates archival materials and inherited nostalgia for planned utopias erected and cast aside. Vibrant and pastel colors unify her work across media and evoke the built landscape of the eroding Silicon Valley where she grew up. Conscious of how much byproduct can result from art-production, Suzy strives to have a “no waste” practice, recycling materials back into her work and making her own paint.

Suzy has been the recipient of more than a dozen residency fellowships including the Oak Spring Garden Foundation, Kala, The Studios at Mass MoCA, Playa and VCCA. Projects related to her research-based practice have been funded by the Hagley Museum, Baltimore National Heritage Area, the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) and the Design History Society.

In addition to her studio work, Suzy is passionate about helping other artists achieve their professional goals and generate sustainable income. She has been an invited speaker on career development topics at the College Art Association, The CUE Art Foundation, Artists Thrive Conference, and the Maryland State Art Council, among others. From 2015-2024 she was a contributing writer for a number of Baltimore-based publications and organizations including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Johns Hopkins University Magazine, Baltimore Magazine, BmoreArt and others. A college professor, Suzy taught water media painting, museum studies and professional development for artists at MICA and Johns Hopkins University.

Suzy has exhibited in group and solo shows throughout the United States and Canada including the Delaware Contemporary, Spring/Break Art Fair and the Austrian Embassy in Washington, D.C. She holds an MFA from MICA.

Artist Statement

In my research-based multidisciplinary work, I unpack the hidden history of everyday American leisure culture. In watercolors, collage work, digital illustrations, ceramics and site-specific vinyl installations, I probe mythology erected by advertising, contrasting facade with fact, sometimes within a single work. Immersed as a child in 1990s Silicon Valley, a place split between the primordial past and a technological future, my today work evokes a secondhand nostalgia for the built landscape Americans construct and soon cast aside. My recent work investigates citrus, a national symbol of bounty and a shorthand for vacation with its sinister labor history and ecological effects.