Susan Klein

Susan Klein is an artist and curator living in Charleston, SC. She has shown her work nationally and internationally. Klein is a 2020-2021 recipient of a Pollock-Krasner Foundation Grant. Other awards include a Hambidge Center Residency, Wassaic Project Residency (NY) and residency at the International Studio and Curatorial Program (Brooklyn), a full fellowship to the Vermont Studio Center, an Ox-bow Artist-in-Residence Summer Fellowship, an Otis College of Art and Design Summer Residency, residency at Arteles Creative Research Center (Finland), and residency at Takt (Berlin). Klein received her MFA in 2004 from the University of Oregon, a BFA in 2001 from the University of New Hampshire, and studied art at NYU from 1997-99. She is an Associate Professor of Art at the College of Charleston.

While in residence, Susan Klein plans to work on mixed media paintings and drawings inspired by her sculptural work. The way that people imbue objects with the power to hold memory, tie the living to the dead, and connect past to present are ideas that influence Klein's work. A common object becomes a sacred vessel, often passed down through generations. Like an altar, an urn, a relic, or holy water, the banal becomes spiritual. The object becomes one of devotion, turned into a votive. This is a metaphor for the act of making art. Museum visitors will experience the artist working from fired sculptures to paint and create paintings in the studio so they can see the connection between their 2d and 3d work.