Using collage, paint, and found materials, Susan creates two-dimensional abstract landscape paintings. Her physical process involves layering, tearing, cutting and rearranging. She works the way landscapes form: building through accumulation and response. Instead of rigidly planning the final image, she responds to what happens as she works. An unexpected color or torn edge can shift the whole piece into new directions.
The work grows out of a desire for reorientation, an ongoing need to adjust, recalibrate, and find footing as the world around us continues to shift. These abstract landscapes aren't necessarily literal places, but visual stand-ins for internal shifts, learning to navigate uncertainty and trust an evolving sense of direction. Each landscape is a kind of self-portrait, not in the literal sense, but as a record of navigating growth and transformation. They explore the intersection of human emotion and environmental context.
Vibrant colors, patterns and organic shapes inspired by nature are reflected in the way forms curve, overlap, and transform across each composition. The mountains she hikes, the plants in her immediate neighborhood, and the varieties of Southern California landscapes all inform the imagery. She also looks to aerial photography, and unusual geological structures for inspiration. Fascinated by nature’s strength, resilience and defiance, Susan explores non-linear ways of understanding the natural world.
Originally from New Jersey, Tompkins has lived and worked in Los Angeles for the past 25 years. She holds a BFA from Manhattanville University and studied art and art history at UCLA. Recent exhibitions include group shows at TAG of Los Angeles, Drawing Rooms Gallery of Jersey City, New Jersey, and the Nan Rae Gallery at Woodbury University. In 2023, she completed a public art commission for the City of Burbank, Let Dreams Take Flight. In 2025, she received a Center for Cultural Innovation Development Grant supporting her development. From 2025-2026, she participated in Shoebox Projects Call & Response, a four month long collaborative art book project, which culminated in a 2026 exhibition at the StartUp Art Fair in Venice, CA. Her art world influences include Abstract Expressionists such as Lee Krasner, the later works of Frank Stella, assemblage artist Elliott Hundley, and her mentor, New York artist Randy Williams.
The work grows out of a desire for reorientation, an ongoing need to adjust, recalibrate, and find footing as the world around us continues to shift. These abstract landscapes aren't necessarily literal places, but visual stand-ins for internal shifts, learning to navigate uncertainty and trust an evolving sense of direction. Each landscape is a kind of self-portrait, not in the literal sense, but as a record of navigating growth and transformation. They explore the intersection of human emotion and environmental context.
Vibrant colors, patterns and organic shapes inspired by nature are reflected in the way forms curve, overlap, and transform across each composition. The mountains she hikes, the plants in her immediate neighborhood, and the varieties of Southern California landscapes all inform the imagery. She also looks to aerial photography, and unusual geological structures for inspiration. Fascinated by nature’s strength, resilience and defiance, Susan explores non-linear ways of understanding the natural world.
Originally from New Jersey, Tompkins has lived and worked in Los Angeles for the past 25 years. She holds a BFA from Manhattanville University and studied art and art history at UCLA. Recent exhibitions include group shows at TAG of Los Angeles, Drawing Rooms Gallery of Jersey City, New Jersey, and the Nan Rae Gallery at Woodbury University. In 2023, she completed a public art commission for the City of Burbank, Let Dreams Take Flight. In 2025, she received a Center for Cultural Innovation Development Grant supporting her development. From 2025-2026, she participated in Shoebox Projects Call & Response, a four month long collaborative art book project, which culminated in a 2026 exhibition at the StartUp Art Fair in Venice, CA. Her art world influences include Abstract Expressionists such as Lee Krasner, the later works of Frank Stella, assemblage artist Elliott Hundley, and her mentor, New York artist Randy Williams.