Susan Hoffman Fishman is a mixed-media painter, eco-artist and arts writer whose work addresses water in the context of the climate crisis. She is especially fascinated by the contrast between the horrifying destruction happening to our bodies of water and the magnificent beauty of that destruction. Her recent paintings and installations recast ancient myths – in which water plays a pivotal role – into visual narratives that reflect upon contemporary society.
In 2021, Fishman’s desire to collaborate with scientists on the effects of the climate crisis on water sources led her to participate in a three-month artist residency at Planet Labs, an international company based in San Francisco, CA that provides daily global satellite images. There, she worked with a Planet geologist and studied the thousands of sinkholes developing in recent years around the Dead Sea in Israel and Jordan, in Siberia and in other countries around the world. Fishman continues to interpret scientific data about this growing environmental crisis through an artist’s lens.
For the past three and a half years, I have also written a monthly series of articles on water and climate change, entitled, “Imagining Water,” for the international blog Artists and Climate Change. The series highlights international artists of all disciplines whose work focuses on water and climate. The process of interviewing and writing about an entire army of painters, sculptors, mixed media artists, installation artists, filmmakers, poets, playwrights, novelists, dancers and others, is an inspiration for my own practice.