Near the end of 2021, Dr. Susie Sharpe appeared at a New York City art exhibit wearing a sea-blue, wave-patterned silk dress that attracted attention. This wasn’t just any dress: It was custom-made from fabric printed with an image of Sharpe’s own painting titled “Blue Waves,” one of the artist’s signature abstract acrylic paintings. It was a favorite moment for Sharpe, a board-certified internist at Mercy Springfield whose work as an artist is gaining international notice.
Sharpe grew up in Korea, immigrated to the United States as a teenager and overcame language hurdles to become a physician. She moved to Springfield in 1998, joining Mercy and raising two children who are now college students on the East Coast.
Since around 2014 her artwork has been exhibited in more than 50 local venues, including eight solo shows. In the last couple years, she has exhibited internationally with shows in Brussels, Luxembourg, Milan and Paris; and nationally with shows in New York and Miami. Sharpe’s creative work has been recognized with numerous awards and she has been featured in various publications and in a podcast.
Most of her paintings are otherworldly, with multicolor abstracts reflecting infinite universes or influenced by the sea. Other works are rainbow-color portraits or reflect her interest in music. She describes her in-home studio as messy — and likely it is while she’s painting in big, textured bright-color strokes. But the studio at rest is neatly organized with jars of clean paint brushes and storage containers of paint. The walls are brightly adorned with her paintings, including a self-portrait.
In this conversation with the Hauxeda, we learned that Sharpe has learned to balance the precision required in medicine with the freedom she feels through art.
Sony Hocklander: Let's start by talking about your colorful paintings. What inspires you to create that kind of art?
Susie Sharpe: I am fascinated by colors. I've always been. I want my art to be beautiful, and inspiring, and bring a positivity in the world. That's why it is very colorful. It’s very intentional.
I think that there is certain art that is very realistic, and sometimes very disturbing, to get people's reaction. And there's nothing wrong with it. But for me, I want to go the other way. I want to accentuate the positive side of life.
I think it is influenced by being in medicine, and especially internal medicine. I treat chronic illness. I treat people with diabetes, people with bad heart disease. I diagnose cancer. I treat people with depression, anxiety and anything in between. My art is to add more beauty to the world.
And I also want that freedom, because in medicine, I have to be so precise. I have to be so controlled and analytical. In art, I wanted to get away from all of that.
SH: When creating abstracts in your studio, do you start with an idea?
Sharpe: I don't go in there with exact ideas. I start playing with colors and patterns. And then I have a lot of texture. And whatever comes in that moment I just let it blossom. Because I like my paintings to be magical. And so that spontaneity is very important because I don't get to be spontaneous in any other aspect of my life, especially in medicine. In the art, I want to have no rules. I want to be totally free.
SH: How did art fit around your early medical career?
Sharpe: I started to do some art in Seattle. And then when I moved here, I joined a studio group that met and painted. And I joined other groups and started doing group activities with them. When they entered something in an art show, I would maybe enter a painting or two.
SH: Did medical colleagues know about your art?
Sharpe: I didn't tell my colleagues much about my art because I didn't want them to take me less seriously as a physician. And I didn't tell my artist friends that I'm doing medicine. They might think that I'm less of an artist.
SH: When did art start to become more prominent in your life?
Sharpe: I was really, really busy with my practice at Mercy. I had patients driving from hours away out of state, some flying from the East Coast. On my good days I would work 15-hour days; sometimes it might be 18-hour days. And then I burned out eventually. I started out loving medicine and then I was working unbelievable hours.
Finally, I retired from Mercy. That was 2011. I was thinking that I was going to do art full time and never get back to medicine. And then I started to feel guilty of not using my training. .... So (in 2013) I found a practice within Mercy where I didn't need to carry a pager and with no weekends. My retirement didn't last very long.
SH: What changed with your art?
Sharpe: I got a little more serious about doing art. Some people do it for being happy but for me it's more than for being happy; it is what I was born to do. It's in my DNA. I had to do it.
I started doing local shows – I've done it everywhere pretty much all over Springfield. And then I got discovered by a gallery in Europe, and then I started doing shows in Europe and other places. So that's where things are now.
SH: What helped you reach this level in your art?
Sharpe: At some point, I ran into Stephanie Cramer (an artist from Springfield and former director of programs and exhibitions at the Springfield Regional Arts Council). She had a solo show and I was so inspired by it. And I said, ‘Wow, someday I'm going to have my own solo show.’ And she said, ‘Susie, start painting big.’ At that time, my typical size was maybe 18 by 24 inches. But seeing her, I was inspired by it. And I set up a challenge that, yes, I was going to go big and I was going to try this. And I started having solo shows eventually.
And then my ultimate dream was to do a solo show in Obelisk Home. You know Obelisk? That's like one of the most beautiful stores. That was a big dream that came true. And then after, I kept on having bigger dreams.
SH: What happened after being discovered by the European gallery?
Sharpe: That happened, let's see, in 2020. They invited me to do a show and then that show got postponed because of the pandemic. It ended up all happening last year. I did three international shows with that gallery: Paris in September, Luxembourg at the end of September and then Brussels last November.
In the meantime, I got into other shows in the U.S., so I did a show in New York in August. And a show in Miami in December – that’s part of the Art Week. So it was really exciting. … That's one of the most prestigious events in the art world. There were thousands of artists from all over the world. It was such an honor, and I got accepted to two shows (Context Art Miami and Spectrum Art Fair) at the same time so I was going to two different places.
SH: Tell me about the dress made from one of your paintings. How did that happen?
Sharpe: I went to Yale for medical school and residency, so I posted my picture into a Yale alumni Facebook group. One of their alumni living in Bangladesh saw that and she's a CEO of a fabric company. She decided that she wanted my painting to be printed in silk fabric. She contacted me through the website.
It was a few weeks before my New York show, and in the middle of the night, in my dream, I thought, ‘I wonder if I can have her make a dress for me.’ So I called her up and I say, ‘Well, I know that my show is three weeks away. Can you pull a miracle?’ And she did! Without measuring anything, I just sent a sketch and the design of a dress. They made the fabric and she sent her husband to New York with this dress. And we met up before the show. And so I worked that show and that dress was a hit.
SH: What are your plans for 2022?
Sharpe: I will do a show later in New York. And then I'm going to probably start working on my memoir this year. And I am doing art. I am doing a lot of online sales and commissions.
SH: You’ve overcome a lot to reach for your dreams. Do you have any advice for others?
Sharpe: We only have one life. I think especially being a physician, I'm constantly aware that tomorrow is not guaranteed for anybody. The message is, really, to live each day to the fullest as though it might be the last day. I certainly reached a point where I'm just going for it. I'm not holding anything back.
And I hope that more people do that.
Learn more about Susie Sharpe
More information about Sharpe, her work and upcoming events can be found at her website, susiesharpe.net.
