susanne nielsen art &words

In 2018 a trip to Cuba to follow in the artist Tomas Marais' footsteps ( he is the topic of my doctoral dissertation) led me to take a printing workshop with Octavio Irving in Havanna, Cuba. The painting which I chose as a basis for my print comes from my Women and Magnolias series.

The black and white print of the painting ( Sinalco, Dancer) brought a good basis for the brown over print.

In 2020 I resumed work on this print, painting some of the details back into the image and most of all, adding the blue-green tones to pulling out more details of the original painting again without abandoning the surfaces created by both the paint and the imprinted relief from the brown printing plate.

Thus in 2020 Dancer Two was "born".

Working at the studio with paintings from the Magnolia series,

but taking some of the words into new directions , not however Sinalco,

a wonderful memory of the lemonade from my childhood days.

"Libby"is another altered Magnolia, completed? Who knows?
Maybe it could use some more words as overlay.

Susanne Nielsen's "Hollywood" Goat - created

for the Grady Goat Foundation's Project G.O.A.T. -

Global Offensive Against Trafficking.

Florida Artist Scott Joseph Moore created the original sculpture. The quote of the foundation, that "Bill Gates wrote, that goats are helping to empower women in the poorest areas of India - a country where women are frequently trafficked for purposes of sexual exploitation and forced labor.." was the incentive to work with the foundation to volunteer as artist.

Susanne Nielsen with the goat before she painted it

This project is both Humanitarian and fun, as the goats are painted, then find ambassadors and sponsors - the Grady Goat Foundation works with Humanitarian causes such as the fight against Human Trafficking and child Abuse.

The theme for me was Hollywood stars, the Hollywood sign and I added the star for the foundation owner's favorite star, Marilyn Monroe. Similarly Marilyn and Audrey Hepburn both are among the stars featured on the goat.

The autograph cards and the unforgettable beauties of the Golden Era of Hollywood -
were inspiration. The B/W glamour shots and old posters had found colorful representations as they covered the back of the fiberglass sculpture. From stars to starlets to girl next door - and a very festive goat, all the glitz also points to the often difficult lives of women in Hollywood. Careers that were not so glamorous as they seem.

Here are some of the biographies of these stars, considered the very best in the Golden Era of film, the stuff of technicolor and in people's dreams!

Hollywood Goat - An Introduction:

Susanne Nielsen took a journey through Hollywood and captured her impressions in form of old autograph cards and photographs, which she colored inspired by the star photos of Natalie Wood and Marilyn Monroe – red lips and rosy cheeks, blond to brunette - with their deep and longing gazes – the studio look of the glamour queens of the Golden Era of Hollywood – the 1940s and 50s.

The main “Leading Ladies” are: (information from Wikipedia)

Ava Gardner (December 24, 1922 – January 25, 1990) was an American actress and singer. Gardner was signed to a contract with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1941, and appeared mainly in small roles until she drew attention with her performance in The Killers (1946). She was nominated for the Oscar for Best Actress for her work in Mogambo (1953), and also received BAFTA Award and Golden Globe Award nominations for other films.

Gardner appeared in several high-profile films from the 1940s to 1970s, including The Hucksters (1947), Show Boat (1951), Pandora and the Flying Dutchman (1951), The Snows of Kilimanjaro (1952), The Barefoot Contessa (1954), Bhowani Junction (1956), On the Beach (1959), 55 Days at Peking (1963), Seven Days in May (1964), The Night of the Iguana (1964), The Bible: In the Beginning... (1966), Mayerling (1968), Tam-Lin (1970), The Life and Times of Judge Roy Hampton Court Maze (1972), Earthquake (1974), and The Cassandra Crossing (1976). Gardner continued to act regularly until 1986, four years before her death in London in 1990, at the age of 67. She is listed 25th among the American Film Institute's 25 Greatest Female Stars of Classic Hollywood Cinema.

Natalie Wood (born July 20, 1938 – November 29, 1981) was an American actress who began her career in film as a child and became a Hollywood star as a young adult. Wood received three Oscar nominations before she was 25. She began acting in films at age 4 and was given a co-starring role at age 8 in Miracle on 34th Street (1947).[2] As a teenager, she earned a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance in Rebel Without a Cause (1955), followed by a role in John Ford's The Searchers (1956). She starred in the musical films West Side Story (1961) and Gypsy (1962), and she received nominations for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in Splendor in the Grass (1961) and Love with the Proper Stranger (1963). She was married to actor Robert Wagner. Her films represented a "coming of age" for her and Hollywood films in general. Critics have suggested that Wood's cinematic career represents a portrait of modern American womanhood in transition, as she was one of the few to include both child roles and roles of middle-aged characters. Wood drowned off of Catalina Island on November 29, 1981, at age 43.

Audrey Hepburn (born 4 May 1929 – 20 January 1993) was a British actress and humanitarian. Recognized as a film and fashion icon, she was ranked by the American Film Institute as the third-greatest female screen legend in Golden Age Hollywood, and was inducted into the International Best Dressed List Hall of Fame. She rose to stardom in the romantic comedy Roman Holiday (1953), alongside Gregory Peck, for which she was the first actress to win an Oscar, a Golden Globe Award, and a BAFTA Award for a single performance. She went on to star in a number of successful films, such as: Sabrina (1954), in which Humphrey Bogart and William Holden compete for her affection; Funny Face (1957) a musical in which she sang her own song parts; the drama The Nun's Story (1959); the romantic comedy Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961); the thriller-romance Charade (1963), opposite Cary Grant; and the musical My Fair Lady (1964), which won the Academy Award and BAFTA for Best Picture. In recognition of her film career, she received BAFTA's Lifetime Achievement Award, the Golden Globe Cecil B. DeMille Award, the Screen Actors Guild Life Achievement Award, and the Special Tony Award. She remains one of only 15 people who have won Academy, Emmy, Grammy, and Tony Awards.

Lauren Bacall (born September 16, 1924 – August 12, 2014) was an American actress known for her distinctive voice and sultry looks. She was named the 20th-greatest female star of classic Hollywood cinema by the American Film Institute and received an Academy Honorary Award from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 2009 "in recognition of her central place in the Golden Age of motion pictures". Bacall began her career as a model before making her film debut as a leading lady in To Have and Have Not (1944). She continued in the film noir genre with appearances with Humphrey Bogart in The Big Sleep (1946), Dark Passage (1947), and Key Largo (1948), and she starred in the romantic comedies How to Marry a Millionaire (1953) with Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable, and Designing Woman (1957) with Gregory Peck. She co-starred with John Wayne in his final film The Shootist (1976) by Wayne's personal request. Their daughter Leslie Howard Bogart (born August 23, 1952) from the marriage to Humphrey Bogart is named after the actor Leslie Howard and is a nurse and yoga instructor.

Susanne with her Bengali Brides project, stemming from her South Asian experience in the early 2000s. There she worked with Rotary on local, regional, and global grants to support a number of Humanitarian causes from cancer clinic, an orphanage and a sewing training center for women.

Thanks for the opportunity to contribute art to this project to the Grady Goat Foundation in December of 2019.

Susanne Nielsen, PhD