ASU Herberger College School of Art Faculty:
2006-2007 Exhibition

April 14 through September 9, 2007

SUSAN BEINER

Susan Beiner
Stoneflower, 2005
Porcelain, foam, polyfil
15 x 14 x 11"
Courtesy of the artist

Susan Beiner

As an artist, I am a product of my environment. Familiar with manufacturing environments and their unexpected beauty, I have consistently looked to my surroundings for inspiration. Various industrial objects and new discoveries in my environment inspire me as I question how our creations and technology mold our perceptions. 

I am influenced by the surrounding colors and textures and how combinations fall into patterns that occur in nature. I admire shapes of hardware, but while negating their intended function, I utilize them as organic specimens rather than industrial fasteners. I search to find a relationship between these disparate parts as the gap between man-made and natural becomes ever decreasing.

Though industrial materials are my base, my final works emanate the organic, and therefore refer to the tension between the manufactured and the natural. The most recent concerns in my work deal with making what is organic synthetic. In today’s world, most everything is manufactured of artificial materials. This extends to what was once all-natural: genetically altered foods, cloned animals and the hybridization of everything. This has led me to want to use additional materials that are a result of an industrial process such as foam, Plexiglas and rubber. 

My current work displays a shift to ideas about installation, covering an expanse of space. My interest is fueled by elements of layering, fragmentation, multiplication, juxtaposition and complication collecting in a room-size venue.  I became interested in using various materials to further the connection that occurs between internal and external space, so as a viewer, we are challenged by our own perceptions of what is authentic and what is not.

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