Susan S. Johnson is a new painter with an unusual talent. She only picked up the brush/palette knife a few years ago and seemed to already know how to capture the essence of a place and to do it with unusual ease and a great deal of joy. A colorist, she has a sophisticated knowledge of color that has come from years of mindful observation.

She has spent her life looking at paintings and nature and combed beaches around the world for shells and bits of glass and ceramic, which adorn her home and feed her creativity. Her passion is beauty. From an early age she loved the Impressionists, Bonnard, and the Fauves and studied their work until it became engrained in her psyche. A confirmed Francophile, she has lived in Paris and Provence and now lives in Benicia, a few blocks from the beach where she is often seen painting the Strait.

She has studied with Jerrold Turner, Nikki Basch-Davis, and Robert Chapla, and is a member of The Benicia Plein Air Painters. She has shown at Hillard Gallery in San Francisco, Java Point in Benicia, Cafe Voltaire in Benicia and the Flyway Festival in Vallejo.