Susan Rollins Gehring

Printmaker & Painter

Studio: 211 Aberdeen Street, Dunedin, Florida  34698
Phone: 727-736-2466
Email:    sgehring1@tampabay.rr.com

Susan Rollins Gehring is a native Florida printmaker and painter. She was born in Tampa in 1948 and grew up in Clearwater Florida.  She earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts Degree in 1971 at Hampton University in Hampton, Virginia and has also studied at the University of South Florida, Santa Fe Junior College, Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts  (part of the University of Tennessee), Florida Gulf Coast Art Center, Dunedin Fine Art Center and in Specialized Printmaking Seminars. The focus of her painting and printmaking has been landscapes and waterscapes of Florida.

Susan began her career with statewide recognition while still in high school. She studied under Chuck Holder at the Florida Gulf Coast Art Center and developed her line and drawing skill with Jeffery Kronsnoble at USF. Her painting and painted sculptures were developed with Robert Phillips and Loraine Bolton at Hampton University. Susans’ exploration into printmaking came as a result of a show at the Dunedin Fine Art Center involving Florida Printmakers. She was intrigued with the painterly quality that printmaker Barry Wilson achieved in his reduction prints.  She has been working in that medium for the past twenty years. She has also been working with Joan Duff Bohrer developing a new approach as a painter for the past 7 years and considers Joan a mentor

Her focus on landscape has been in both abstract and representational form.  Florida waterscapes have been a key focus since Susan spends much of her time with Dunedin’s Saint Joseph Sound in view and she fishes the Chassahowitzka national wildlife refuge in Citrus County.  

“As a native I have watched the slipping away of the primal, the essential, the soul of Florida. I am privileged to have access to an unspoiled area, The Chassahowitzka National Wildlife Refuge and have based most of my recent images on that habitat.  This work represents to me the quintessential Florida. Florida is such a contrast between big sky and impenetrable vegetation, spectacular sunsets and subtle colors of saw grass. There is peace there but also raw violent nature.”

She worked as Artist in Residence for the Dunedin Fine Art Center to direct and produce their Florida Treasures Art Mural a community executed public art project consisting of 3,000 tiles which were personally painted and drawn by individuals in the community and school groups.

Susan was a staff member at the Dunedin Fine Art Center, and she served on the Board of Directors of the Dunedin Fine Art Center and as President.  During her first Presidency she initiated and supervised the capital campaign and construction of a $1.2 million expansion to the Dunedin Fine Art Center. This growth step consisted of a 10,000 sq. ft. addition creating the David L. Mason Children’s Art Museum along with new galleries and studios creating the Gladys Douglas School for the Arts.

She has also been the President of the Professional Association of Visual Artists for 15 years and is now the immediate past present of PAVA.

Susan has been invited and shown nationally, regionally and locally.  See the exhibition page for further information: Click Here

Susan was the 1997 recipient of the Pinellas County Arts Council’s Friend of the Arts Award in the Artist Category.

Susan has been married for 49 years and has three grown children.