Susan Bennett | Biography

Making sculpture is an adventure that perfectly suits me, bringing together my training in the arts, technical skills in metal work, and life lessons learned.  Creating is a very satisfying process that nourishes confidence, gives comfort, and makes self determination a possibility.

When I make sculpture from carbon steel (Tear Vase with Flowers, Birds in a Bush), I consider its industrial tempered, substantive traits.  I work intuitively exploiting its innate qualities of force and vitality. It feels somewhat subversive to disregard the utility of this material for aesthetic purposes.  There is sensory appeal in creating biomorphic form, and manipulating the surface into a variety of texture, polishing it into a soft charcoal sheen, or adding subtle natural hues.

Soaring effortlessly, stainless steel (Wind, Things I Sea, Passage, Chance) possesses attributes that are expansive. Nature evokes physiological responses, impulses that are a fundamental source of creativity. We are naturally drawn to the sparkle of the sun on water, and so it is as soft, light reflecting patterns on the surface of a stainless steel sculpture enhances the visual rhythm with linear contours and asymmetrical balance.