Suzanne Kiggins - Artist Statement

Pictured: Star Information - Colored pencil on paper - 9" x 12" - 2026

SUZANNE KIGGINS: ARTIST STATEMENT

I am a self-taught artist based in Brooklyn, NY and sometimes, Hudson, NY, currently working primarily with acrylic on paper, wood panel, and canvas, and drawing with markers and colored pencils. Prior to making art full time, I had a 20 year career in educational simulation design.

I paint and draw to express the human experience. I once read, in a Louise Erdrich novel, that the root of the word "sincere" is "sine cera," meaning "without wax." This has always stayed with me — it gets at what I am trying to do when I work. I attempt to get underneath the "wax" of society, of modern life, without the light pollution of the conscious mind, pretense, distraction, and ego; in order to capture somehow what we are all experiencing but don't really have words for.

I find that employing symbolism and metaphor are the straightest way to scratch away this "wax."

A common theme is the tension between opposing powerful forces such as order and chaos, safety and exploration, life and death, connection and independence.

Down below are energies moving through us. They remind us of our deep connection to one another and to the universe, which feels vast and unknowable, yet also deeply familiar.

Ultimately, I communicate my internal world in the hope of finding that these hard-to-define experiences are familiar to others, too.