Figure with Bamboo Root and Pole

Susan Fenton creates photographs the way directors make films, choosing a script and assembling a cast to bring it to life.  After first drawing her idea, she constructs three-dimensional compositions using models and props.  Next, she shoots the scene in black and white, and then she hand-colors the resulting prints with muted tints. 

During the early 1990s, Fenton lived and worked in Tokyo.  Three of these Convention Center works were done there, incorporating Japanese sitters and plants.  In all of her spare, understated scenarios, Fenton prefers androgynous figures whose facial features she shields from view.  Mysterious and aloof, these models pit their sensuality against the simple geometry of their fabricated world.