JENELL TAYLOR
Staff Writer
At 6:30 p.m. tonight in Hultquist 101, Chautauqua Visual Arts’ School of Art will welcome faculty member and multidisciplinary artist Susan Klein as she speaks about her career and practice as an artist.
“This is my first time in Chautauqua, and I look forward to speaking with the community,” she said. “I feel excited to share my practice and be part of the artistic tradition that is so important in Chautauqua.”
Working in sculpture, painting and textile, Klein’s pieces explore architectural and abstract forms. Her work has been shown both nationally and internationally, earning her the Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant in 2020 and 2021. She currently serves as an associate professor of art and chair of the Art Department at the College of Charleston.
At the start of her career, the social sphere was much smaller than it is now. Klein began her work in an era when there was no social media and the internet was still very new. For Klein, this meant that the art world was teeming with new possibilities; it also meant that there was much more room for uncertainty.
“Everything is different now,” she said. “It is both a smaller world and a larger one. Larger in that there is a constant barrage of images and endless information — often it is too much!”
However, the sense of togetherness within the community remained uninterrupted, Klein said.
“Other things are the same, it’s all about community and finding a way to sustain a practice through economic and personal hardship. That was true then, and it’s true now,” she said.
As an artist, Klein feels that her practice is constantly teaching her about herself. Through the combination of painting, textile, sculpture and installation, she makes sense of a world that is continuously evolving and pausing for none.
“It is a constant navigation between my inner and outer worlds, which is what is so interesting about making the work,” she said.
