ABOUT THE ARTIST

Susan Volk Stanley grew up in Maryland and was recognized early on for her artistic talents selling her water colors and creating decorative arts for stores and craft fairs in high school. She started as a fine arts major at Guilford College in North Carolina, but when the abstract oriented instructors told her that realist painters were destined to be medical illustrators, she quickly changed her major to visual arts and upon graduation went into the film business working as an Addy Award winning stylist for print and commercial advertising. In the mid 80's Susan moved to Arizona to pursue work as a set decorator, designer and art director expanding into episodic television and movies as well as beginning a set design company geared to the blossoming corporate theater market.

Her last film brought her to Prescott, where she met artist Tom Dorr at The Phippen Museum Art Show who told her about The Scottsdale Artist School, a place she could once again find her fine art spirit. She began studing in earnest with some of  todays most sought after realist painters including Matt Smith, Scott Christensen, Sherri McGraw and Joni Falk along with many other talented instructors and painters through the school. These workshops proved invaluable leading Susan back to the place where she began, to her love of realist painting. In 2001 she made the leap and sold her successful set and event design business, built an expansive art studio and a place of inspiration in Prescott. These days you will find her painting, creating memorable Still Life, Landscape and Animals in oil. She lives with her husband, two children, five horses and a collection of dogs and cats dividing her time between a desert ranch in Scottsdale and a hillside home in Williamson Valley outside Prescott. Surrounded by so much beauty and inspiration it is no wonder that Susan's paintings are sought after by both private and corporate collectors alike. She is a member of Oil Painters Of America, American Women Artists, International Guild of Realism and The Impressionist Society of America.