Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 2

Susan Hensel
Susan Hensel_Hard Geometry 1_embroidery on fabric mounted on painted Arches

2017

About the Item

Susan Hensel designs images in the computer using specialized software.  It is a form of drawing in stitches that combines aspects of both Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator.  She transfers the design to the embroidery machine, assign the colors and stitch. The stitch-out creates a module. From the modules, Hensel proceeds to create the final piece, using whatever other materials are necessary to complete the idea.  Hensel has chosen to work in this field because of the revolutionary, mind-blowing color possibilities.  Each thread provides multiple tones of a single color because of the unique triangular structure of the thread.  When the thread-color choices are made in relation to other threads and the background color of the fabric. Using a minimal number of colors and basic techniques Susan Hensel creates sparkling, changeable chromas by exploiting the physics of light as it interacts with the structure of the triangular embroidery thread.  The light scatters in multiple directions, off the sides of the triangular thread, creating different tones and saturations of the base color.  She also exploits the science of optics, relying, like the French painter Seurat, on our brain’s ability to optically mix spots of color in close physical proximity with one another. Further relying on the principles of color as taught by Joseph Albers and Johannes Itten et al, Hensel exploits the vibratory effects of complementary colors and close saturation split complements. All of this creates a real-time, changeable optical environment activated by the viewer’s movement from side to side as they view the artwork.  

Historically, flatness is a key characteristic of most embroidery. Hensel's work breaks ground by engaging with sculptural space. She uses thread and fiber techniques to shift light and perception through structures in the real world. Relying on an extensive knowledge of her materials, Hensel creates small to large-scale hard-edge sculpture from soft fabrics that paradoxically keep their crisp form with minimal armatures. Hensel creates a compelling viewer experience: one of puzzling beauty, playfulness and sometimes awe. The work invites people to slow down, engage in a place of wonder, enter a more contemplative state, giving themselves time to fall in love with this world and each other again.  Biography Susan Hensel received her BFA from University of Michigan in 1972 with a double major in painting and sculpture and a concentration in ceramics. She has a history, to date, of more than 300 exhibitions, 35 of them solo, more than twenty garnering awards. In the coming two years, Susan has solo, 2-person, and group exhibitions scheduled in Ellicot, MD, Bloomington, MN, Hopkins, MN, Duluth, MN, and the Garrett Museum of Art, Garrett, Indiana. Hensel's artwork is known and collected nationwide, represented in collecting libraries and museums as disparate as the Museum of Modern Art in New York and The Getty Research Institute with major holdings at Minnesota Center for Book Arts, University of Washington, Baylor University and University of Colorado at Boulder. Archives pertaining to her artists books are available for study at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle. Her new innovative work that blends commercial embroidery processes with sculptural concerns is gaining attention and awards. Susan’s knowledge of materials makes it possible for her to create small to large-scale hard-edge sculpture from soft fabrics that paradoxically keep their crisp form with minimal armatures. Her knowledge of the physics of color allows her to create shape-shifting displays employing the special reflective characteristics of embroidery thread. In recent years Hensel has been awarded multiple grants and residencies through the Jerome Foundation, Minnesota State Arts Board, Art to Change the World, and Ragdale Foundation. Hensel's curatorial work began in 2000 in East Lansing, Michigan with the Art Apartment and deepened with ownership of the Susan Hensel Gallery in Minneapolis. Hensel has curated over one hundred exhibitions, and supporting events, of emerging and mid-career artists from all over the United States and Canada.
More From This SellerView All
  • Susan Hensel_Hard Geometry 3_embroidery on fabric mounted on painted Arches
    Located in Darien, CT
    Susan Hensel designs images in the computer using specialized software.  It is a form of drawing in stitches that combines aspects of both Adobe Photoshop...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Mixed Media

    Materials

    Fabric, Acrylic, Archival Paper

  • Susan Hensel_Hard Geometry 2_embroidery on fabric mounted on painted Arches
    Located in Darien, CT
    Susan Hensel designs images in the computer using specialized software.  It is a form of drawing in stitches that combines aspects of both Adobe Photoshop...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Mixed Media

    Materials

    Fabric, Acrylic, Archival Paper

  • Susan Hensel_Hard Geometry 4_embroidery on fabric mounted on painted Arches
    Located in Darien, CT
    Susan Hensel designs images in the computer using specialized software.  It is a form of drawing in stitches that combines aspects of both Adobe Photoshop...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Mixed Media

    Materials

    Fabric, Acrylic, Archival Paper

  • Susan Hensel_Hard Geometry 6_embroidery on fabric mounted on painted Arches
    Located in Darien, CT
    Susan Hensel designs images in the computer using specialized software.  It is a form of drawing in stitches that combines aspects of both Adobe Photoshop...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Mixed Media

    Materials

    Fabric, Acrylic, Archival Paper

  • Nancy Baker, Be Just, 2014, glitter, acrylic paint, archival paper
    By Nancy Baker
    Located in Darien, CT
    Nancy Baker creates paper constructions by combining digitally printed, hand and laser cut geometric forms loosely based on machine parts. Over time, the hardware imagery has evolved...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Glitter, Acrylic, Archival Paper

  • Nancy Baker, Fewer Answers, 2017, paper, acrylic, digital pigment print
    By Nancy Baker
    Located in Darien, CT
    In Baker’s work, there is solace in the geometry of fundamentals, and a practice that focuses on the ephemeral nature of paper and the ease of its transportability, which allows her to create large-scale constructions. A desire for definitive certainties and incontrovertible truths in an era of “alternative facts”, precipitate the need for Baker to assert her clarification of evidence. A new major installation has been created for her exhibition at ODETTA that layers baroque design elements found in paper cup carrying trays with anxiety-provoking phrases, rendered as gorgeous, yet fragile paper spheres...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Paper, Acrylic, Digital Pigment

You May Also Like
  • Swept 1- black 3D organic feel contemporary abstract mural sculpture
    Located in New York, NY
    Erin Vincent is a Toronto based-artist whose work draws on a variety of repetitive and labor intensive processes and materials. Things and common objects have always fascinated Vinc...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Resin, Foam, Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

  • Paper Shale- black 3D organic feel contemporary abstract mural sculpture
    Located in New York, NY
    Erin Vincent is a Toronto based-artist whose work draws on a variety of repetitive and labor intensive processes and materials. Things and common objects have always fascinated Vinc...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Resin, Foam, Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

  • Fire- red 3D organic feel contemporary abstract mural sculpture in foam
    Located in New York, NY
    Erin Vincent is a Toronto based-artist whose work draws on a variety of repetitive and labor intensive processes and materials. Things and common objects have always fascinated Vinc...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Resin, Foam, Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

  • White Burst 2 - 3D organic feel contemporary abstract mural sculpture in foam
    Located in New York, NY
    Erin Vincent is a Toronto based-artist whose work draws on a variety of repetitive and labor intensive processes and materials. Things and common objects have always fascinated Vinc...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Resin, Foam, Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

  • Lapis - 3D small contemporary blue abstract round mural sculpture
    Located in New York, NY
    Erin Vincent is a Toronto based-artist whose work draws on a variety of repetitive and labor intensive processes and materials. Things and common objects have always fascinated Vinc...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Acrylic, Wood Panel, Archival Paper

  • OPEN EQUIVALENCE 1 - acrylic on cut linen with cotton thread -Abstract Geometric
    By Linda King Ferguson
    Located in Signal Mountain, TN
    In this sculptural piece, Linda King Ferguson has cut a piece of linen canvas into a half-diamond shape, with an ellipsis cut-out close to the scalloped right edge. A red cotton thread completes the second half of the diamond shape, then hangs from the bottom corner, evoking the image of a kite. King Ferguson's paintings are abstractions of the female body. She chooses to use linen...
    Category

    2010s Abstract Geometric Abstract Sculptures

    Materials

    Cotton, Linen, Thread, Acrylic

Recently Viewed

View All