As an artist, I am constantly inspired by the world around me and the ways in which people interact with their environments. In 2020, a time of extreme political rancor and COVID-19, I started painting maps of American cities to explore the ways that geography affects economic opportunity. My work uses the Census Bureau’s Opportunity Atlas project, a powerful tool that tracks outcomes in adulthood and relates them back to the neighborhoods where children grew up, as a source of information and inspiration. I hope that my art will inspire viewers to consider the complex and often invisible forces that shape economic opportunity in our society.

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susan@susanshipleyartist.com