Shushana Caplan

About

Shushana Caplan is an abstract acrylic artist and art teacher who grew up in Montreal, Quebec. She was born in Brest, Belarus in 1940. She had a very unusual early childhood. As a one month-old infant, she was sent to Siberia with her parents for the duration of the second World War. She emigrated to Canada in 1948.

Shushana received her art education at Concordia University in Montreal, where she earned degrees in Fine Arts (Studio) and Fine Arts Education. She works in mixed media painting, collage and abstract acrylics at the present time.

Several years ago Shushana created a series of paintings exploring her early experiences as a child refugee in Siberia and the legacy of her parents and grandparents in Poland. Using photos that her parent had carried with them through their travels across war-torn Europe, some over a hundred years old, Shushana created “dreamscapes”, paintings that evoked stories about the family's journey to freedom. Twenty-five of these works were exhibited at the Coral Springs Museum in Florida.

Shushana's work is autobiographical in the sense that it is an ongoing narration of her inner thoughts. Personal memories and fantasies are explored aesthetically, but the actual process of painting is discovery. For her, painting is more than simply creating pictures. It is the act of finding meaning.