NYAB Event - Susan Newmark “Layered Narratives”

Susan Newmark “Layered Narratives”

Figureworks

This event has ended.

Susan Newmark is a mixed media artist focused on socially charged collage works. Her working process includes cutting, tearing, layering and sanding with added drawing and color parallels. She is fascinated with simultaneous levels of meaning as she explores her own emotional identity and reflects upon the many contradictions of being female.

“Layered Narratives”, Susan’s latest body of work, explores storytelling through the creation of imaginary landscapes integrated with abstract elements. She says of this series, “I use found papers from popular culture – such as wallpaper, wrapping paper, magazines, newspapers, comics —, and paint. The layering process begins as an improvisation and an appreciation of how torn posters on the walls of subways and buildings reveal layers of memory as disparate parts unravel and new unexpected realities emerge. Through an additive collage process and the juxtaposition of the abstract and the representational, my surfaces become interwoven networks and dense webs of vision not unlike a packed urban environment. The work constantly changes and fractures as paper is repeatedly added, sanded, and painted. The distressed surfaces, the fragile female images and the figures in the landscapes seem to contain their own histories and associations as they become interwoven within fields of color, form and pattern. The inclusion of Nancy in many pieces, recalls the daily comic strip I read as a child; she was fearless, curious, confident, a problem solver, and all seeing. I dreamed about having similar attitudes and adventures, and longed to play with her pets. I am, as well, fascinated with tattooed bodies as expressions of identity and transformation and their occurrence in all civilizations. They appear in my work as objects of an exotic beauty and messengers in the narratives. And although there is no one way to read my work, there are many points of entry.”

Susan has exhibited at Figureworks in two solo exhibitons and many group shows. Her collages and artists books have also been in solo exhibitons at the Brooklyn Public Library at Grand Army Plaza ,and the galleries of John Jay College, Long Island University, St. John’s University, and Garrison Art Center. Her work has been included in group exhibitions at the Brooklyn Museum, Parrish Museum, Islip Museum, Cummings Foundation, Brooklyn College ,The Center for Book Arts and Rotunda Gallery. Susan has had residencies at the Lower East Side Printshop, the Women’s Studio Workshop ,and Byrdcliff Arts Center, She is in the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Lower East Side Printshop and Medical Library of the University of Southern California. Susan was Director of Visual Arts at the Abrons Arts Center Henry Street Settlement for many years ,and as an advocate for the arts, is now on the board of the Center for Book Arts and the advisory of Kentler International Drawing Space. She also coordinated Dialogues in the Visual Arts, a series of artists conversations at Tribeca Performing Arts Center.

Media

• Drawing
• Other

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