Brief Biography

New York-based artist Susan Leopold was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1960, and by the time she was in high school, she had already begun to be seriously involved in art. In her teens, she was introduced to Ed Paschke, a Chicago artist who led the Imagist art movement of the 1960s and 70s (somewhat similar to Pop Art - i.e. Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein). Leopold considers Paschke to be a great influence on her work because of the way he uses color to distort photographs of famous and not-so-famous people. Similarily, Leopold attempts to alter images in order to challenge viewers' perceptions of the world around them. Leopold received a bachelor's of fine arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York and a master's degree in the Interactive Telecommunications Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts. She was an artist-in-resident at YADDO, an artist colony in Saratoga Springs, NY and at the Mac Dowell Colony in Peterborough, NH. She has been honored with many awards and fellowships, helping her to pursue her art and to travel for inspiration. In 1989, she was awarded an Indo-America Fellowship which allowed her to travel to India where for 10-months she studied traditional Indian miniature paintings. Leopold was in awe of the way Indian artists represent space in these small works of art. In both her collages and sculptures, Leopold also attempts to create a sense of space. Leopold also describes her work as a combination of an Edward Hooper painting and an Alfred Hitchcock movie. While Hooper is known for creating baron and often lonely-looking scenes, Hitchcock had a knack for putting weird, surreal twists on American life. Leopold takes images of ordinary spaces such as bathrooms and hallways, and transforms them into mazes, optical illusions, and mixed-up and somewhat confusing places.

Artist's Statement

On both small and large scales, my work explores the shifting nature of perception and how memories affect our experience of space. It raises questions about how architecture is integrated into our daily lives and personalized by human experience. The desired effect of my installations and small sculpture is to transform public space in a way that reflects the personal and private aspects of living in an urban environment. My other aim is to create art works that capture the fleeting, yet lasting experience of first impressions. Characteristically, I depict intimate and emotionally charged perspectives familiar to the city dweller, such as a street view into the bedroom window of an apartment or a dingy corridor leading to an empty subway platform. I combine photographs, mirrors, periscopes, and the space itself to create intimate perspectives that are charted out and pieced together in the mind's eye. A corner is not longer an entrapment but becomes an expanse beyond, encouraging the viewer to go "through the looking glass." Audience interaction is an integral element of this work. These sculptures often require the viewer to peer through peep holes of varying sizes. Sometimes they are startled to see themselves on a video monitor. The viewer not only acts as a voyeur, but also realizes their own vulnerability in being watched.