In and Out of the Fold – Susan Hensel Textile Work
[su_box title=”In And Out Of The Fold – COMING SOON” box_color=”#2a6bb0″]September 14, 2020 – November 2, 2020
Watch for NEW, never before seen work by Susan Hensel, ready to delight and uplift your spirits.
MARK YOUR CALENDARS
Return HERE for the link to the show on September 14![/su_box]
Susan Hensel textile work is a dizzying journey of shifting colors and arresting, yet abstract, form. In and Out of the Fold presents biomorphic shapes and geometric patterns with sumptuous texture, representing Hensel’s long history with transformative, sculptural work.
The series revels in overwhelming color, serving to create moments of intense sensation. In a world of increasing speed and economic literal mindedness, Hensel slows down time through visual intensity, pausing these dominant concerns. But the pieces do not merely prefer the transcendent to the physical, rather they unite the two modes into a shared space.
Susan Hensel Textile Work
The pieces here seem to unfold in a self-same manner, like fractal structures in nature. It’s as if they arrive out of themselves, appealing to some inner sense of being that the viewer brings with them. That self-becoming speaks like a message not in words but in Hensel’s shapes and colors. It is form describing form itself. This is not the language of philosophers and accountants but of tree limbs sprouting and embryos growing. The wordless is expressed through the common language of biological forms.
The Process
By using the intrinsic shapes of nature, the viewer recognizes something of themselves and every other living thing inside the beauty of the object. It is through that beauty that unity can be seen expanding beyond boundaries of ego and linguistic category.
Hensel’s work does not try to elaborate on the mysteries of existence. Instead, she moves into the mystery, exalting it above all else as an aesthetic experience found in the folds and color of every piece. In these strange shapes and occluded moments woven in textile, Hensel upholds the aesthetic power of the ineffable.
This subtlety of meaning and sophistication of form are achieved through a variety of means. Hensel works in multiple disciplines and materials, primarily focusing on digital machine embroidery. Her process is a hybrid of traditional “craft” and also modern production technology, a productive tension that runs through her career.
Hensel’s work has also appeared in hundreds of exhibitions, including dozens of solo shows, across a fifty-year span. She is the recent recipient of grants and residencies from the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, and Ragdale Foundation.
About Susan Hensel
Susan Hensel is a multidisciplinary artist, with a 50+ year career. She combines a mixed media practice with embroidery across digital and manual platforms. She also makes sculptures and wall art using the colors and techniques of commercial embroidery. These artworks are also designed in the computer and stitched out on the computer-aided embroidery machine. The goal is to create an experience for the viewer that overwhelms with color and transcends the quotidian, encouraging one, for even a few seconds, to step outside the narrative of the ego into a place of pure sensation.
Susan Hensel Textile Work
