Monday, May 11, 2015

“Island of Babies in deep blue Sea” by Susanne Nielsen at DFAC

              ELEMENTAL:  Summer JURIED QUILT EXHIBITION AT DFAC    
                 An exhibtion addressing the four elements of nature—Water, Air, Earth, Fire,
                    Dunedin Fine Art Center, 1143 MICHIGAN BLVD, DUNEDIN, FL 34698
                                              

Island of Babies in deep blue Sea” (homage to Harper Lee/To Kill A Mockingbird) 
by Susanne Nielsen (Cotton fabric hand applique, hand and machine quilted, 34” x 34”              x 34”)

Artist statement:  The theme of my soft sculpture’s story is the element of Water. This life-giving element is our first home, we are born into it, and released into the world.  Inspiration for this birth myth is author Harper Lee’s story, protagonists Dill and Scout’s question about the origin of babies. A man in a boat goes to an Island to breathe life into sleeping babies (To Kill a Mockingbird). Parts of the text have been stitched into the pregnant form, the island was hand-painted and quilted into layers of waves.  Susannen2@verizon.net;   www.susannenielsenarts.blogspot.com                                                                     

Detail


Monday, March 30, 2015

Ruth Eckerd Hall Exhibition April,May 2015 "Coming to America" Series

                              
Susanne Nielsen shows her “Coming to America” series at Ruth Eckerd Hall April/May 2015 

Press:

                                                        

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April 2015
 Gasparilla Fine Arts show awards winning Tampa artist and art historian Susanne Nielsen will be exhibiting  five paintings from her “Coming to America” and “Childhood” series  April/May 2015  in Clearwater, Florida.
Nielsen and 11fellow artists are exhibiting their work in the upstairs galleries of Ruth Eckerd Hall, one of three major performing arts halls of Tampa Bay. Art and culture lovers who visit the numerous theater, Broadway and concert performances have free access to the galleries.
                                                                      


Susanne Nielsen’s "Coming to America" ​​and "Childhood" series are based on memories of her own childhood and the many impressions that she experienced as a city child of the fifties and sixties in her before and fter her emigration to the United States. In sunny California, making San Francisco thir home, Susanne chronicles this new world she discovered in words and pictures. 

                                                                        

The artist attended school and played with American girlfriends and her new little brother, sang American songs, read "Mother Goose" and "Waldi", experienced German and American Christmas with family and relatives. She heard German pop songs on records at home and saw "The Wizard of Oz" on TV, learned from English schoolbooks and leafed through her mother’s German magazines. The family kept up its two cultures their years in the US and Reykjvik, Iceland before returning home.
In her paintings Nielsen shows impressions from their early childhood in Germany and also excerpts from her German-American childhood abroad, collages of photographs, poems, lyrics, songs and advertising in times of growing postwar economic prosperity.

                                                                    

While researching the arts and cultural history for her courses at universities and art museums, Nielsen has been working for a long time with her own immigration history and continues to develop her own iconography of this German-American identity, which she shares with many women who also emigrated   and with a childhood that many of the children whose parents are immigrants, share.
In her paintings and three-dimensional works Nielsen often combines multilingual texts and textiles with painted acrylic paintings, mating patterns and typeface so typical of the promotional images just this new era after the war. The objects and pictures, with statements in various languages, texture and materials, always allow complex interpretation.
                                                                  
Susanne Nielsen exhibits along with bridget marshall,Carolann Mancuso , Debora Pridgeon , Gina Coccaro , Holly Bird , Joyce Curvin ,Lisa Fitch, Lorraine Potocki , Robert Herbenick , Leslie Jeffery, and Terd Smedley
Susanne Nielsen has shown parts of this series in one person exhibitions in Germany and the German Consulate Miami.
                                                                               
The artist is present and availble to answer questions on Sunday, April 19 and Sunday, May 3, respectively, during theintermission of the Florida Orchestra concerts or by special appointment. Call her at 813-254-5088 or visit www.susannenielsenarts.blogspot.com ,  for information and updates on  other exhibitions.

                                                                      

(German translation)

Deutsch-Amerikanische Kuenstlerin Susanne Nielsen stellt aus
                                              

                       “Childhood/Kindheit” Zyklus der Tampa Kuenstlerin Susanne Nielsen

Clearwater - Die Malerin/Bildhauerin und Kunstgeschichtsdozentin Susanne Nielsen, Gewinnerin vieler Kunstpreise (Best of Show , Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, Award , Gasparilla Show of Fine Arts,Tampa), die zwischen ihrer Heimatstadt Wiesbaden und Tampa, Florida pendelt, wo sie zur Zeit fuer Ihre Doktorarbeit an der Universitaet Paderborn die Monigrafie eines kubanischen Exil-Kuenstlers schreibt, stellt im April/Mai 2015 fuenf ihrer Bilder aus.
Zusammen mit einer kleinen Gruppe von Künstlerinnen zeigt Nielsen fünf ihrer Bilder aus dem Zyklus „Coming to America/Childhood in Germany” in Clearwater, Florida, aus.  Ihre Werke sind in den oberen beiden Galerien der Ruth Eckerd Hall, einer von drei grossen Theater-Hallen der Tampa Bucht von April bis einschließlich Mai 2015 ausgestellt. Kunst- und Kulturliebhaber, die die zahlreichen Theater-, Broadway- und Konzertaufführungen besuchen, haben freien Zugang zu den Galerien.
                                                                       
Susanne Nielsens Malerei-Zyklen „Coming to America“ und “Childhood” basieren auf Erinnerungen ihrer eigenen Kindheit und den vielen Eindruecken, die sie in ihrer deutschen Heimat als Stadtkind der fünfziger und sechziger Jahre erlebte, und bei ihrer Auswanderung in die USA im sonnigen Kalifornien wiederum in der Grosstadt San Francisco in Wort und Bild erlebte. Die im Ausland groß gewordene Künstlerin besuchte Schule und Stadt, spielte mit amerikanischen Freundinnen und dem kleinen Bruder, sang amerikanische Lieder, las “Mother Goose” und “Waldi” , erlebte deutsche und amerikanische Weihnacht mit Familie und Verwandten. Sie hoerte deutsche schlager und sah “The Wizzard of Oz” im Fernsehen, lernte aus englischen Schulbuechern und blaetterte in  Mutters deutschen Zeitschriften, die die Familie während ihrer Jahre in den USA und Reykjvik, Island regelmäßig las.
In ihren Bildern zeigt Nielsen Eindruecke aus ihrer wiesbadener fruehen Kinderzeit und ebenfalls   Ausschnitte aus ihrer Deutsch-amerikanischen Kindheit, Collagen aus Fotos, Gedichten, Texten, Liedern und Werbung  dieser Ziet des Aufschwunges.    
                                                                 
Bei ihren Recherchen zur Kunst- und Kulturgeschichte, die Susanne Nielsen an Universitaeten und Museen lehrt, befasst sie sich seit langem mit der eigenen Immigrations-Geschichte und entwickelt weiterhin eine eigene Ikonografie der deutsch- amerikanischen Identitaet, die sie mit vielen ebenfalls ausgewanderten deutschen Frauen teilt, und mit einer kindheit, die viele der Kinder , deren Eltern immigranten sind, teilen. In ihren Bildern und drei-dimensionalen Werken kombiniert Nielsen oft mehrsprachige Worte und Textiles mit gemalten Acrylbildern , die Paarung von Mustern und Schriftbild so typisch für die Werbebilder gerade dieser neuen Zeit nach dem Krieg. Die Objekte und Bilder, mit Aussagen in verschiedenen Sprachen, Textur und Materialien, lassen stets vielschichtige Interpretation zu .
                                                                           
 Susanne Nielsen , die bereits einige dieser Werke in einer Einzelschau in Wiesbadens Galerie Wort-Art und im Generalkonsulat Miami zeigte, stellt zusammen mit bridget marshall,Carolann Mancuso , Debora Pridgeon , Gina Coccaro , Holly Bird , Joyce Curvin ,Lisa Fitch, Lorraine Potocki , Robert Herbenick , Leslie Jeffery und Terd Smedley aus.  
                                                                     
Die Ausstellung der Werke  kann von Besuchern der Ruth Eckerd Hall von April bis Ende Mai 2015 in den Galerien des ersten Stocks besichtigt werden. Die Kuenstlerin steht am Sonntag, den 19.April und am Sonntag, 3.Mai jeweils waehrend der Pause des Florida Orchesterkonzerts fuer Fragen zur Verfuegung. Rufen Sie sie an und machen einen Termin unter 813-254-5088 oder besuchen Sie www.susannenielsenarts.blogspot.com ,  Informationen und weitere Austellungs-Termine finden Sie auf dieser Seite.
                                                                       

Saturday, February 15, 2014

Project: Bengali Brides...

                                         
                                             
                           A painting project, "Bengali Brides" by Susanne Nielsen,
Work in progress, uses of acrylics and framed by Indian fabrics, to combine textiles and the beautiful images of brides which Susanne Nielsen met and photographed on her South Asian trips in the early 2000s.
                                                         

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Mothers, Myths and Memories - a multi media exhibition with community involvement


                                 Exhibition "Mothers Myths & Memories" , Largo, Florida


                                                 interactive exhibition concept "Memory Wall"

This exhibition in a public space, the gallery of a library, invited visitors as viewers but also as active participants and contributors of the show "Mothers, Myths, and Memories". A wall filled with the reminiscences of invited friends of the artist who could send in their stories and a photo with this story of their own mothers, if non-english a translation was provided, filled the wall gradually over the month of the exhibition. 
Contributions by visitors to the library in form of comments or stories of their own added to this space, filling the black pin-boards. 

An opening reception had Susanne Nielsen speak about her own work and present the concept of adding to her own sculpture and paintings of childhood and relationships to mother, father, grandmother and aunts. 

Many contributions were added to this month-long celebration of motherhood. A poetry group that meets in the building chose the theme of the exhibition and its month of May (Mothers Day month) to have its members write and then contribute poetry to the exhibition.

A closing reception offered all involved to celebrate the finished exhibition and the artist could thank them as much as they could feel their own place as vital part of the project.

It also was an impetus to created and curate more such projects in the future.

The 3-D component of this exhibition were the mixed media sculptures that show both the pregnant form of the torso, and the birth myths and different aspects of pregnancy.
Individual stories told through the embroidered words and quilted designs.