The Goldmark Cultural Center is proud to present “Shadows and Light”, a pop-up exhibition featuring sculptures and paintings by Goldmark artist Susan Justus. “Shadows and Light” is on display in the Goldmark Artists’ Showcase from 5 September 2022 to 18 September 2022, with an exhibition reception on Saturday, 10 September 2022 from 3.00 - 5.00pm. Susan will be present at the reception to respond to questions or comments about her work.
About the Exhibition
“Shadows and Light” is Susan Caroline Justus’ first solo exhibition. The items chosen for this exhibition grew out of her experiences (global, domestic and individual) of the past few years and a childhood cloaked with her mother’s anxiety and fear.
These “root shades” combine the sense of the roots’ struggle, strength and determination to grow and their sense of flexibility, vulnerability, and patience with the domestic lampshade.
Wiktionary defines lampshade as “a cover over a lamp to either diffuse the light or to block it in certain directions to avoid glare in the eyes.” Wiktionary also provides a verb sense: “The verb sense comes from the idea of making something more conspicuous by hanging a lampshade on it.”
These two seemingly contradictory definitions communicate a desire to both protect and showcase. The suspended roots reflect a sense of groundlessness or being uprooted. The urge to paint the roots gold was inspired by the Japanese Art of Kintsugi . A way to celebrate the roots and receive healing from their message. Combined with the other pieces in the exhibition, a sense of observing and letting go is conveyed.
About the Artist
The past few years have been rough for all of us, devastating for some.
My personal experience includes responsibility for a mother with dementia and two siblings that have distanced themselves. I took solace in my garden and made daily delightful discoveries that included the habitat of frogs and the exquisite detail of the patterns and colors found on flowers and insects.... and then came the winter storm of 2021.
As I was pulling up the plants that didn’t make it, including my trusty rosemary bush, the roots made a strong impact on me. They seemed to exude a sense of struggle, strength, and determination to grow despite obstacles in their way. To me, they also became a metaphor for flexibility, vulnerability, and patience.
The materials I use and the way I assemble them are strongly influenced by my southern roots, my parents’ “migration” from the North Carolina mountains to Florida when I was a child, and their work as teachers during the civil rights movement. We travelled many times from Tampa through the red dirt of Georgia, foothills of the Carolinas and eventually to the remote Appalachian setting in Walnut, North Carolina and back.
Muslin, burlap, cheesecloth, branches, roots, bundles, vessels, the civil rights movement, my eighth year alive - 1968 with headlines like those of today, cotton, asphalt, seedpods, bugs, and rusted objects all inspire me to pay closer attention to how everything is connected and to find beauty where I least expect it.
-Susan Justus