Invited artist: SUSAN FERRARI ROWLEY
Here/Now, 2023
aluminum, lutradur, rubber, plastic
My ‘record’ Here/Now reflects how I live my life in the present. The use of hard and soft materials create a layered appearance that parallel the character of my life. The way I am using the materials is where my aesthetic is at this moment in my artistic output. Line, plane, the mark of the hand and use of industrial elements typify my view of existence in our culture today.
Susan Ferrari Rowley attended Rochester Institute of Technology acquiring her MST and MFA. Fabric was her medium of choice. She played a role in the acceptance of fabric as sculptural medium in the art world, consistently pushing the creative envelope for what was thought of as a ‘proper medium for sculpture’.
On December 16, 1984, New York Times reviewer Phyllis Braff wrote of Ferrari Rowley’s work:….’examples that hold our attention as pure esthetic expressions help to establish the validity of fiber as a fine art medium….her dazzling three dimensional color abstraction, ‘Complementary Movement’ is clearly a star here….the effect is both stimulating and meditative….perhaps the show’s most profound piece……
Ferrari Rowley helped erase materials boundaries in exhibitions such as ‘Materials: Hard and Soft’ in Texas and The International Art Competition juried by Messinger of MOMA, Satz of the Whitney, and Little from Art in America. She won best of show and purchase for the permanent collection at Chautauqua National Exhibition, and the Brenholz Award for Innovation at the International Fiber Exhibition. She was in the international OK Harris Gallery in Manhattan, selected by the late icon of modern art, Ivan Karp, whose mission was ‘to show the most significant art of our time’.
She had solo exhibitions in 2017 at The Delaware Contemporary; Artspace, Richmond, Virginia; and Five Points Gallery in Torrington, Connecticut in 2019. Outdoors included Chautauqua Institute and SculptureNow at The Mount, Lenox, Massachusetts. She was one of seven Americans in the international 2018 Venice Biennial Sculpture Exhibition, Time/Space/Existence. Her major installation opened in 2020, funded by the Rubens Family Foundation, at Rochester Institute of Technology, NY. In 2022 she was in the Double Take International Exhibition, and International Foto Focus Biennial Exhibition in Cincinnati, Ohio. Currently she is on a Mellon Foundation, and New York Cultural Grant.
