Shadow Sink
Susan White
Susan White works with thorns from the honey locust tree to create discrete sculptures and large scale installations. She also makes pyrographs, burn drawings influenced by the burning of the prairie in the spring, a kind of fertility ritual that restores nitrogen to the soil.
Much of White’s work evokes a sense of stillness, of quietness. Through the use of organic materials and processes she explores the elemental relationship of the body to the landscape, the cellular nature of the body/the granular nature of the soil, the sense of time and space in the natural world.
Susan White has been an adjunct professor at the Kansas City Art Institute as well as at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. She’s earned a BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute and a BA from Drury University. Her work has been supported by three Inspiration Grants from ArtsKC and artist grants from the Nerman Museum, the Daum Museum and the Salina Art Center, the Avenue of the Arts Foundation and the Creative Capital Foundation for a Professional Development Workshop.
An international travel grant from the Lighton International Artist Exchange Program supported her artist residency at Youkobo Art Space in Tokyo. White exhibited a thorn installation, Flag IV, in an exhibition in Como, Italy in 2019, with support from ArtsKC.
I was invited to exhibit the most recent in a series of American flags made of honey locust thorns in the exhibition, PopUp, in Como, Italy in the fall of this year, 2019. The exhibition was hosted by Miniartextil / Arte & Arte, a cultural organization based in Como. This is the 29th year for this annual exhibition. It was an honor to exhibit this work in the former Chiesa di San Francesco with a group of artists from across the world.
The thorn flag reflects the angst and frustration, the sense of disarray, contentiousness and the fractious nature of democracy occurring at this moment in America. The thorns themselves are elegant in their geometry and simplicity yet daunting in their sense of danger and potential for destruction. This is similar to the concept of democracy, which is elegant in theory, yet dangerous when the freedoms it provides are abused and subverted for nefarious means.
This project was supported by Miniartextil / Arte & Arte through their invitation to exhibit this work; by an Inspiration Grant from ArtsKC to support shipping of the work; by Studios, Inc. for their ongoing support providing expansive studio space as a three year Resident Artist; and by my wonderful installation assistants in Como, Lucia and Anastasia, as well as my equally wonderful studio assistants in Kansas City, of whom there have been a number. My thanks go to all of them, and to the photographer and friend, EG Schempf, who's careful and sensitive images have supported my work over the years. Thank you all.
< back