Artist and sailor Susan Parker captures the braided, embroidered, and sequined turbulence of the open sea. 

Surely no one watches the water as keenly as the sailor? San Francisco painter Susan Parker lives aboard her boat, which she often sails competitively alongside her husband to victory.

But when she retires to her studio on Islais Creek near Dogpatch, it is not the trophies but the graphic textures of the water that surface in her mind’s eye.

The images shift from calm to menacing, depending on light modulated by fog and marine layers, and in her canvas and board seascapes Parker seeks to capture their fleeting beauty. Her large and small acrylic paintings — passing nods to Turner, Monet, and even Hokusai’s water renderings — are painstakingly crafted layer by layer, some with a tactile, three-dimensional quality. Unlike those masters, Parker keeps her gaze firmly on the water she has absorbed and which is now “leaking out of my fingers,” she says.

susanparkerpainter.com

Photos provided by Susan Parker