Art Focus 4/23/19 with Susan Seubert
Our listeners who will be in Portland this weekend celebrating Portland Photo Month can learn more about your work during the Exhibit tour and discussion on Saturday, April 27, 11am*
Portland-based photographer Susan Seubert returns to Froelick Gallery for her latest exhibition, titled A Typology of Lament. This body of work includes arresting photographic images created on small rectangles of glass with the antique wet-plate collodion process of ambrotype that was popular in the 1850s. Seubert uses this technique to create images of handkerchiefs.
Associated with the act of mourning- both as a tool to mask and daub a tear-streaked face and as a identifier of a bereaved person- these float ghost-like, crisp and white, suspended against the liquid ground. Embroidery and lacework details evoke a delicate veil between life and death; their aesthetic is antique, feminine- Seubert pointedly notes that the acts of weeping, grief and mourning number among the very restricted range of emotions traditionally deemed acceptable for women. Another series on view, encaustic wax-coated pigment prints of birds' nests, recognizes the tenth anniversary of Seubert's significant work Nest; depicting nests she has found and been given in the intervening years, these objects represent to her a calming, natural structure, an encapsulation of sincere nurturing in the face of the chaos of the world at present.
Susan Seubert is an active fine art and journalism photographer, exacting in her preparation and printing, is a master of new and old techniques. She was recently invited to choreograph a short performance in BodyVox's Pearl Dive Project, running through April 20. Among her many honors are inclusion in Personal Structures at Palazzo Bembo, Venice, Italy, concurrent with the 2017 Venice Biennale and in Portland2012, a Biennial of Contemporary Art and in the Portland Art Museum's 1999 and 2001 Biennials. She was a finalist for the Contemporary Northwest Art Awards and received Gold in the category of Travel Magazine Photo Essay by the North American Travel Journalists Association. Her work is included in public and private collections including Microsoft Corporation; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Portland Art Museum; Oregon Health Sciences University; Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art, University of Oregon; the City of Seattle, WA; and the Tacoma Art Museum, WA. She holds a BFA in Photography from the Pacific Northwest College of Art, Portland, OR, 1992.
- KBOO