For more than a decade I have been enthralled by the large cargo ships seen from the window of my studio at Pier 70, overlooking the San Francisco Bay. Light and weather transformed these ships into the gorgeous, mysterious protagonists of my paintings, and I contemplated their unknown journeys, and their heavily laden global implications.  Eleven years’ worth of ships have passed by my purview, and I have become familiar with their antics as they traverse the scene, or languish at anchor.

Now, as I paint, I find it may not be necessary to literally describe them.  Perhaps I am painting from the ship’s perspective, diving into the seascape through which they must venture in all weathers. Or perhaps they are still there, just beyond the veil of fog.  I search the light particles for the perfect unattainable spot, a shimmer of yellow-green beckoning me forward, a gentle blue that makes my heart ache, a swoop of turquoise that gives hope.  Traveling with my mind’s eye between sea, sky and shore, I imagine myself completely immersed in the colorscape.

Suzy Barnard, May 2014