Susan Pullman Brooks (b. 1957, New York) began painting at a young age, apprenticing at the Huntington Fine Arts Academy during high school then graduating with a BFA from The Philadelphia College of Art (now the University of the Arts) in 1980.
In the early 1990s she developed an interest in yoga, and her curiosity to learn more about Hindu mythology led her to make several trips to South India. In 2003, she opened her own yoga studio in Bucks County, PA. She credits her interest in Hindu myth as well as the physicality of yoga as what reignited her desire to make art.
Collecting natural and found materials has become part of her process, and she is fascinated by the exploration of the natural world and what can be discovered in it. She collects objects that evoke memory or have a compelling combination of shape and texture, such as antlers, vines, and found objects like abandoned tools and equipment. Creating a visual library from these objects is part of her process, from which she can play with composition and balance to create something new that becomes more than the sum of its parts. Pullman Brooks says she reached a creative turning point in 2012: “It occurred to me that what I really love is translating the narrative that appears in my mind into three dimensions.”
Her work has been included in recent exhibitions at the Rochester Contemporary Art Center, Rochester, NY, MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ, and Red Dot Miami, FL.