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Artist Bio & Statement
Suzanne Clemens
www.suzanneclemens.com
I am an emotive artist whose work deals mostly with issues of the
body, perception, and beauty. Born 1977 in Montreal, Quebec, I currently
reside in the sunny state of Florida. My work has been showing nationally
since 1998 and I have several pieces in private collections all
over the country and the world reaching as far as Australia.
I was first inspired to the visual arts by my grandfather who
successfully raised five children on his work as a sculptor and
art professor in Toronto, Canada. In my years as a practicing artist,
I have always been faithful to the human form as my most loyal subject.
This is where I am most comfortable, and where I believe my work
remains the strongest.
The use of the figure allows me to explore those issues that I
find to be most interesting and especially significant in today’s
culture. Having recovered from an eating disorder myself, I use
my experience and the experiences of others to fuel my exploration
of how each of us perceives our own image. The butterfly is a common
symbol for anorexia, but it also represents a sense of unease, fragility,
and camouflaging beauty to imply strength. These symbols become
significant and constant in my most recent series of work.
Moving past previous works which were more confrontational and
blunt in their emotional execution, these new works use the beauty
of the butterflies and their surroundings as a “smoke screen”
for the issues being investigated below the surface. Each image’s
raw message is entangled in a detailed and very intentional mask
of delicate beauty.
The intentional obscuring of the message allows the works to evoke
a polarized array of reactions. While some viewers are enticed initially
by the attractive detail and beauty, others are capable of directly
seeing below the elaborate surface to the message hidden in the
details. Just as in real life, when we put on a “happy face”
some people may have the disposition to immediately accept that
masquerade without question, while others are naturally more intuitive
and seek to explore deeper.