Description
Portraits of vulnerability, uncommonly captured in wistful cotton. They are Madonnas, lost girls, older men and women stuck in their youth, young women old beyond years. Their sexuality is hemmed in by fine Victorian handwork , but within their boudoirs, they are free
We often think of portraits as true and memory as relatively inviolate . We own our own image and memories and see them as accurate. But it seems to me that when we are depicted by another, possibilities other than accurate fact are possible.
As I age, the stories of my childhood blur and are sentimentally remembered as someone else’s life. I remember my Mother’s story as if it were my own. I remember my story as hers, though she died long before I began to forget the string of the narrative. Even my Father’s stories morph across gender and become mine. It seems that the stories of families can never totally expire.
sculpture/installation
[su_box title=”Susan Hensel” box_color=”#2a6bb0″] Susan Hensel is a multidisciplinary artist, with a 50+ year career, who combines a mixed media practice with embroidery across digital and manual platforms. Susan received her BFA from the University of Michigan in 1972 with a double major in painting and sculpture and a concentration in ceramics. With a history, to date, of over 200 exhibitions, more than 30 of them solo, twenty garnering awards. Above all, Hensel’s desire to communicate stories through art continues to be a powerful motivator. Hensel’s artwork is known and collected nationwide, represented in collecting libraries and museums. [/su_box]