Being – and Belongings
SUSAN ALDWORTH is a super conscious artist on all levels, in her varied and broad career as an artist not only has she created exhibitions on our need for sleep, or studies of epilepsy. This summer she is even giving a talk at the Vatican on international consciousness.
Susan has exhibited all over the world, from Japan to Ecuador. Her current exhibition at Edinburgh Printmakers highlights the plight of migrants.
"I first got the exhibition idea as I got really furious with the anti immigration narratives that were bandying around. As a third generation Italian I spent a while thinking about how best to do it and then I remembered I'd been given my grandmother's night dress when she had moved over from Italy in 1924.
Someone gave it to me to look after for her and I decided to imagine what the contents of her suitcase might be through embroidery".
The resulting show is a beautiful exposition of the nightdresses hanging in limbo in the gallery with people being able to walk through them feeling the weight of emotion.
"A few years go I'd done a similar piece by embroidering on to clothes", she said. "I see the work as a gentle political work.
It's trying to say: If you have empathy and you listen to people's stories, you can see the truth. You can't demonise people, you have to treat them as human." she said.
"It is more of a quiet conversation – Although I am angry, I don't think confrontation head on is a way to change lives."
Art was not Susan's first choice in life. She originally started out in publishing before studying in her early 30s at the St John Cass School of Art.
"I loved art and was always reading artists' biographies as a child." she said.
Her first ever show was a sold-out exhibition at the friends of the V & A in London and she went on to have a run of exhibitions there.
There is also a print element of the show on the upstairs level of the gallery. "Modern Alchemy" is an exhibition highlighting the dialogue between art and science. Working in the laboratory, Susan also explored the similarities and differences in processes between chemistry and art and was able to bring this into her printmaking. The exhibited prints are the result of a series of conversations about science with Dr Amanda Jarvis, looking at the sustainability of chemical production.
Susan mainly works from her garden studio in Hackney, East London. She loves the work of many other artists.
"I adore Goya, Louise Bourgeois, Paula Rego and I'm a huge fan of Tracey Emin. I think she's terrific, really engaging – she's a risk taker", she added.
What Susan loves most about being an artist is "It's an adventure, and you get to work with such talented people all around".
The hardest part of being an artist, she says, "is making a living and also the relentless demand for social media content:"You can't just do the art nowadays– You have to showcase it all on social media also if you make the work. You have to get it out there".
She has very much enjoyed the experience at Edinburgh printmakers. It's a big difference in showing Edinburgh than in London.
"There is so much art going on in London – you don't get the sense of support of the city, In Edinburgh there's a real sense of what's going on and people are a lot more alive and interested, it's a wonderful place to exhibit", she said. "The private view was amazing, there was so much interest"
For her next project Susan is taking six months time out to work on a project on grief – "Grief is such a strange beast. My mother died in 2020 . I still find it quite hard to talk about it. Perhaps it will be easier to make work about it", she revealed.
When Susan is working in her studio – she likes to listen to audio books.
"I love Dickens, Henry James, Elizabeth Sprout, making the art Is not necessarily intellectual – the research is intellectual – I can engage my intellect somewhere else and go with the flow as it were.
When she's not listening to audio books she enjoys listening to music too. Very wide range –"The Beatles, Beethoven, Mozart and Opera".
TESSA WILLIAMS
Belongings and Modern Alchemy – At the Edinburgh Printmakers until June 28.
