Philadelphia, PA

Susan Fenton

http://www.susanfenton.com/

Susan Fenton’s subject matter is directly linked to the cultural and/or environmental influences of a particular time and/or place in her life. She worked from her own preconceived sketches, much like a filmmaker with a storyboard, using the figure as a human element with a few props to provide reference. The props are designed and constructed in the studio, sometimes taken from existing articles that are altered and combined or completely fabricated by her. Susan’s pictorial space is tightly composed and, in spite of any narrative content, her primary concerns are visually formal. The resulting images are singular narratives in which the model provides an anonymous “persona” existing in an undefined world.

Susan Fenton’s figurative work is about the relationship between the human form and the fetishism of fashion, the visual effects of covering and/or exposing parts of the body and the impact of its presentation. Susan’s images address issues of gender, ethnicity, sexuality, and the concept of beauty by drawing attention to the complex ideology from which we develop style. The symbolism and iconography that the fashion industry has dictated, its power to promote the ideal as commonplace, and the resulting effect on personal self-esteem are constant threads throughout her work.

Much like her treatment of the figure, Susan Fenton also worked in still life, collecting, altering and constructing simple objects arranged in a shallow space. This work, often done on location, is a response to the light, sound, architecture, landscape, and cultural history of places where she lived, traveled to and worked in.

Throughout the breadth of her work her intention was never to document, but to allow the transformative qualities of a photograph to generate a psychic response.