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October Issue 2007
Sumter County Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC, Offers Works by Susan Harbage Page
Sumter County Gallery of Art in Sumter, SC,
is presenting the exhibition, Susan Harbage Page: Postcards
from Home, on view through Nov. 3, 2007.
2007 has been a benchmark year for "Feminist" art, with
major bicoastal exhibitions, WACK! Art and the Feminist Revolution
at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, and Global
Feminisms at the Brooklyn Museum in NYC, as well as numerous
companion exhibitions at galleries in New York and Los Angeles
and in between. The Sumter County Gallery of Art is honored to
present Susan Harbage Page: Postcards from Home, and in
so doing, is proud to be a participant in this celebratory affirmation
of feminism in art.
Page
is a nationally known photographic and mixed media artist whose
work addresses the changing roles of women in society, the impact
of religion on women's lives around the world, and modern racism
in all its guises. In addition to some older, albeit still powerful,
work, Revival (2004), Woman Waiting (2003-2005),
and Misconceptions (2005), this exhibition includes two
new bodies of work, Postcards from Home (2007), where Page
made a pattern of a 1920's KKK hood from the NC Historical Museum
and then constructed hoods out of modern fabrics that were modeled
by men and women to make the statement that "racism no longer
wears a white hood-it is more insidious and hidden these days,"
and Embroideries (2006), a series of found textiles on
which Page has embroidered emotional sentiments reflecting a sense
of entrapment and helplessness of women in less than ideal relationships.
Page offers the following statement about this exhibition: "This work is tied to the realization that often hatred doesn't wear a white hood. In all of its subversive manifestations racism presents itself in oxford cloth shirts, corduroy jackets and floral dresses."
"The North Carolina Museum of History provided me with access to original Ku Klux Klan uniforms from the 1920's from which I was able to make patterns. From those patterns I made hoods out of contemporary fabrics. For many years I made my living photographing corporate CEOs, I use the same lighting set-up for these images."
"Racism and hatred are often historicized. This work is my attempt to address and acknowledge that these elements operate as a constant in our society and surround us daily, like wolves in sheep's clothing."
There are also several new video installation pieces, and an interactive installation Mixed Blessings where viewers can wrap ashes from an actual burned African-American church in Charlotte - the target of a hate crime-in small pieces of cloth and tie them up and put them on a shelf, as an act of healing. This exhibition, perhaps the most challenging to date, is part of SCGA's ongoing commitment to diversify the exhibition schedule to include more artists of color and female artists.
As Karen Watson, director of SCGA notes, "Page's
art breaks down boundaries, whether they be veils or hoods, race
or politics. By doing so she challenges tenuous self-made 'realities'
defined in black and white, and presents a truer but grayer reality,
where human relationships, actions, and feelings are less predictable
and thus more frightening. But the opportunities for reaching
out, for the empathy gained by seeing something through different
eyes, for enacting positive change for the betterment of all,
makes such a risky exploration worthwhile."
Page received her MFA (photography) from the San Francisco Art
Institute in 2004, and A Masters of Music and Bachelor of Music
from Michigan State University, 1983, 1981. She is currently a
Lecturer and Director of the Allcott Gallery in the Department
of Art at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Page's recent exhibitions include The History of My Life Written Across My Body, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, NC, 2003; Revival, Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art, Colorado, 2003; Misconceptions and Mixed Blessings, Bryan Art Gallery, Conway, SC, 2005, Terms of Endearment, Eyedrum, Atlanta, GA, 2005, and Involuntary Memory, Blanden Memorial Museum of Art, Fort Dodge, IA.
Page's work has been exhibited in Bulgaria, Italy, France, and China as well as throughout the United States. Her work is included in numerous public collections including the Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland, Birmingham Museum of Art, Alabama, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, Springfield Museum of Art, Ohio, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Columbia Museum of Art, Columbia, SC, and the Israel Museum. She is the recipient of many awards including a Project Grant from the Emrys Foundation, Greenville, SC, 2005, two North Carolina Arts Council Fellowships, 2004 and 2000, the Camargo Foundation Fellowship, Cassis, France, 2002 and a Fulbright Travel grant, 1992.
For further info check our SC Institutional
Gallery listings, call the Gallery at 803/775-0543 or visit (www.sumtergallery.org).
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