STATEMENT
My current artwork is the creation of sculptures fashioned from felt and other natural materials such as thorns, branches, rocks, and bones. Beginning with fiber from sheep, alpaca and goats, I make and shape the felt into forms inspired by nature and by the female body. My newest work is a series of goddess sculptures, guardians of women’s power and testaments to the beauty of women, including those in aging bodies.
When I work, I feel as if I hold the life cycle in my hands: the life cycle of the sheep, alpaca, and goats as each is sheared in its proper season; the cycle of countless generations of felt-makers as I repeat with my own hands their ancestral motions; the life cycle of the plants and animals, including our own species, which inspire my vision.
My hope is to evoke in the viewer the mystery and the deep connection of all of this and to enlarge the definition of what is beautiful.
Susan Kaplow
545 West 111th St. #8E
New York, New York 10025
website: www.susankaplow.com
Email: sbkaplow@gmail.com
Profile:
| Susan Kaplow is a visual artist working in fiber, paper, performance art, and mixed media. Her current art work is the creation of sculptures fashioned from felt and other natural materials such as thorns, branches, rocks, and bones. She has made art related to illness and healing; women’s wisdom; lgbt issues; torah and personal transformation. She brings to her art practice 30 years experience as a psycho- therapist, on-going study of Jewish texts, and deep immersion in nature. |
Recent Exhibitions:
| 2017 | Vulvacular, co-curated group show, Ceres Gallery, New York City |
| 2017 | Out of Bounds, Solo Show, Ceres Gallery, New York City |
| 2016 | Transformations, Bernard Museum of Judaica, New York City |
| 2015 | Summer Seranade, Ceres Gallery, New York City |
| 2015 | Small Works, National Association of Women Artists, New York City |
| 2015 | Art and Healing, Lowy-Winkler Rare Book Center, American Jewish University, Los Angeles |
| 2014 | Pirkei Avot ve Imahot, Ethics of the Fathers and Mothers, Lowy-Winkler Family Rare Book Center, American Jewish University, Los Angeles |
| 2014 | The Jewish Art of Healing, Shomrei Emunah, Montclair, NJ |
| 2013 | The Seventh Day: Revisiting Shabbat, HUC-JIR Museum, NYC |
| 2013 | The Sexuality Spectrum, Sherwin-Miller Museum of Jewish Art, Tulsa, OK |
| 2013 | The Sexuality Spectrum, HUC-JIR Museum, NYC |
| 2012 | The Sexuality Spectrum, HUC-JIR Museum, NYC |
Print:
| 2013 | An Artists Beit Midrash, CCAR, The Reform Jewish Quarterly |
| 2013 | Sexuality Spectrum Exhibit of Jewish Art Starts Discussion at Sherwin Miller, James D. Watts, Tulsa World |
| 2012 | Hard Blessings: Jewish Ways Through Illness, Susan Kaplow Book of stories of illness and healing enhanced by Kaplow’s artwork |
| 2012 | Pirkei Imahot, Lillith Magazine |
| 2012 | An Unorthodox Guide to Sexuality, Debra Nussbaum Cohen, Jewish Daily Forward |
| 1999 | Coming Out at Auschwitz, in Beginning with a Broken Heart, Dresser and Cunningham |
| 1997 | Oswiecim Means Enlightenment, Turning Whee |