Susanne Andover Keany lives and works in Weston, Connecticut. She paints and creates sculptures based on themes from nature. She is a graduate of Barnard College and the School of Visual Arts at Purchase. She participated in the Studio Semester Program in New York and also studied with the late Robert Reed. She is a member of the Westport Artists Collective. She has exhibited widely in Connecticut, New York and Florida and her work is in both private and corporate collections.
Susanne says, “I think of the sculptures in this exhibition as my Totem Series. A totem is defined as an object serving as an emblem of a family or clan believed to have spiritual significance. Inspired by objects collected in nature and objects found during the process of living in the world; these odd bits of wood, feathers, lace, leather, bone, beads become powerful when joined. Things that you pick up, that you cannot throw away. Little things that somehow speak to each other. Big things that exert their presence. They gravitate towards each other and emanate a kind of spiritual energy. Although the sculptures are informed by the past, the works that emerged, were often surprising, like old friends that I had not seen for a while, changed but still the same. I find this creative process totally engrossing and almost effortless.”
Mollie Keller lives in Trumbull. She divides her year between Trumbull and Madison CT. Her primary occupations these days are reading and painting, two joys that she never made priorities before now. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College, she has a PhD from New York University, and spent her working life as a historian and civil servant.
In addition to painting, Mollie fools around with artist books and fiber arts. Through joint artistic explorations and endeavors with her grandchild she has also discovered the joys of glitter glue. She says, “ I awoke one day early in the new year with an unbearable sense of urgency..This work is a manifestation of that.”