Susan Hensel, Eros and Thanatos

Richmond, VA – artspace is pleased to present paintings, drawings and installation works by Susan Hensel. Exhibition dates are March 23 through April 22, 2018. An Opening Reception for the Artists takes place on Friday, March 23, 2018, from 6:00-9:00 pm and is Free and Open to the Public. A closing artist talk takes place Sunday, April 22, 2018 at 2:00 pm, will also be Free and Open to the Public. This show culminates during Richmond’s Earth Day Festival on Saturday, April 21, 2018 when artspace opens its doors to the festival-going public with its exhibitions that complement and support the Earth Day message. Gallery visitors during the Earth Day Festival will enjoy music by keyboard artist, Tony Dursa.

The Main Gallery exhibition entitled, Eros and Thanatos, includes large scale drawings, installation and sound by Susan Hensel. Hensel describes this series as "elemental like the first handprints on the cave walls." The images are oval, floral, undersea, vulvar: evocative of birth, life, and pleasure. "The artwork is a consideration of beauty while still acknowledging vulnerability, pain and brokenness," Hensel writes. "Death will always arrive for each and every one of us. It is the subtext of all that we do and the source of the rapturous awareness of the divine, the immanent, the beautiful. Beginning with instinct and sensory data, ending in nothingness, with beauty and pain in between..." Hensel's practice in the studio is to work for extended periods of time with a single idea. "From June 2015 to January 2017, I worked exclusively with shell-like vulvar images in multiple media, comparing and contrasting the vulvar shapes with aquatic life forms," she says. "Wall hung, framed and unframed pastels, drawings, prints, paintings, lace, sound and performance are employed to create a multisensory experience of the beauty and breadth of living." Hensel holds an M.F.A. from the University of Michigan.