By: Sylene Argent, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, Essex Free Press

Years ago, world-renowned artist Ron Suchiu of Essex County found himself bedridden in New Orleans for 18-hours, wondering if it was a voodoo curse he acquired after unknowingly taking a forbidden picture of a Voodoo God.

That is just one of many, many stories the artist has in his memory bank. He has worked with an array of celebrities on art pieces, such as Jane Goodall, David Suzuki, Sting, Dan Aykroyd, and Gordon Lightfoot, each forming with interesting happenings. That includes when Eric Burdon of band “The Animals,” invited Suchiu to his 60th birthday in LA. There, he got to meet Jimi Hendrix’s younger brother. The artist ended up completing a painting for Burdon for the song “House of the Rising Sun.” 

And all of those stories have been captured in his new book, “Wizard of Art,” which has recently hit the shelves. The title is a play on a movie on which Suchiu has been hooked.

“There are some pretty amazing stories,” Suchiu noted.

It has taken eight-years, but Suchiu’s long-time goal to share some of his stories are finally printed in a book, nestled against his fine art pieces in a compilation.

“I designed the whole, entire book. Everything about it; the texture, the cover. I wrote it all,” Suchiu said, noting its unique 12”x12” size that was handmade with fine quality paper to ensure his art was captured well.

It includes large, high-resolution pictures of almost every painting found in Suchiu’s repertoire over the past 35-40-years, including the George Lucas piece he created to raise funds for the Jane Goodall Institute, which is outlined in an entire chapter. 

It also outlines Suchiu’s own technique called “synergy” where he learns of someone’s favourite colours. He uses that to create the background. Then that individual gets to paint on that. He created one with Aykroyd, Suchiu said.

“I wanted to do the highest-quality possible,” he said, noting the pandemic-caused inflation increased prices to publish. That didn’t stop him from achieving his goal of producing the book. 

In addition to the artwork, it includes a description of the work through the artist’s eyes, and all of the “weird and wild” stories behind the work.

Compiling the stories into the book allowed the local artist to share them with a broader audience, rather than telling just one person at a time in casual conversation.

“In the book, it would be hard for people to comprehend that it all happened to one guy,” Suchiu said. But he can multiply the stories in the book five times and still have more to spare.

“I meet everybody. I met Bob Hope in a store one day. I run into people. President Clinton, I was shaking the guy’s hand at a baseball game.”

He was even titled a National Treasure by two Prime Ministers: Paul Martin and Jean Chrétien. 

Clients, so far, who have said when they read the book, “it is like you are sitting with me.”

The reason putting the book together was so important to Suchiu was because his diversity caused him to be something other than what most artists are. He’s an equestrian artist, an aviation artist.

“It all depends on what I have to be,” he said.

That has created quite the collection of pieces in his repertoire.

At one time, there were 45 galleries that dealt with his work, and he lost some because they did not know how to promote an artist who “did it all.

“People who met me 30-years-ago know my whole career, so what I needed was something that would equalize your education to my art, and this is what we call the equalizer. This allows people to experience what my experience was through my life.”

Suchiu was always an artist.

In his youth, Suchiu said he was a little kid who had no guidance and just wanted to live life. He became an artist who just wanted to live life and not have rules to follow in creating. 

“I kind of raised myself,” he said. “So, I found that I took a look at the world differently.”

Every time he drew, he did pretty well at the age of six or seven.

By the time he was ten, he sold his first portrait, for what his father earned for a week’s pay back then, “which was huge,” Suchiu said.

That really sparked the interest.

He taught himself, studying the works of da Vinci, Norman Rockwell, and Salvador Dali, his three favourite artists.

“People see this happening through the book: all of my art is based on myself using three mentors,” he said. “I chose them almost like a recipe.”

When needing to create a loving and friendly piece, he would lean on Rockwell. If he needed to be technical, he would go to da Vinci. If he needed mystery – that feel of surreal – he would go to Dali.

Looking back at his career, Suchiu called it a “surreal painting. I don’t know of another artist who has done what I have done.

“The biggest problem an artist has is making a piece of art and thinking it is going to make you famous,” Suchiu said. Running his art business has been a demanding job. “I’m a Canadian artist that survived on art my whole life.”

As for his art, some are displayed in the Vatican, Windsor Castle, and in collections of Nelson Mandela and Clinton.

There’s a limited number of 1,250 books available, each hand-signed and numbered. The premier edition book has only 250 copies, and comes with an original sketch inside. Suchiu likes to personalize the sketch for the purchaser. That makes them each unique, and something he doesn’t think he has seen before. There is also a handmade, wooden book stand available.

“It is not going to happen again,” he said.

The “Wizard of Art” book can be purchased at: suchiu.com/product/the-wizard-of-art-book.