Banner artwork: Susannah Bielak, Edificios Revisados, engraved formica table from the multimedia installation Quake/Temblor: A Forensics of Interior Life and Natural Disaster, on view in Bethel University's Johnson Gallery through January 16.
(Reproduced for access+ENGAGE with permission by the artist)
About her work on the Quake/Temblor installation, specifically, Bielak writes: "Quake/Temblor is a response to encountering my civil engineer father's diagnostic photographs of the 1985 Mexico City earthquake amidst family photographs, and it explores the intimate rapport between human and geographic disaster. The project 
includes engravings on formica tables, prints, text, sound, and videos of experiments conducted on a state-of-the-art seismic shake table. Quake/Temblor explores issues including the breakdown of daily life, the relationship of the individual to a larger social system, and the impossibility of prediction—in the process, transforming a scientific testing ground to a theatrical stage, employing domestic objects to speak to ruptures in daily life after natural disasters, and using the process of printmaking to speak to collapses in time, memory, material, and space."
More generally, she says: "As a visual artist, I function largely as an anthropologist. Inspired by the interplay of identity and space, I use drawing, painting, printmaking, photography, and installation to envision ideas about personal and social relationships. Propelled by social questions, I cut things down to their most essential parts—using elemental lines to relay physical and psychological space. I employ gesture, the emotion of color, and sensory detail to choreograph each work.
"For the past twelve years, I've interspersed drawing with
printmaking, photography, painting, installation, and video. My work often incorporates nontraditional materials and processes in order to best render an idea (for example, applying drawings and text from sketchbooks onto bus doors to simultaneously reference the personal and public; drawing in relief with water on opaque plastic to reference subtleties of memory). My experience in the social sciences, particularly anthropology and ethnography, influences my immersive and research-based approach to projects. My process generally includes interviews with editing and interpreting stories, sketches, photographs, and sounds. I strive to employ grace and economy of line in order to call out singular details of contemporary life."
About the artist: Susannah Bielak was born in the volcanic metropolis of Mexico City, seasoned by the rivers and lakes of Pittsburgh and Minneapolis, and currently lives next to a canyon in San Diego. She completed her BFA in studio art, anthropology, and psychology at Macalester College in 1998, and recently completed her MFA at the University of California, San Diego. A recipient of a number of artistic fellowships, Susannah Bielak's work has been exhibited and collected nationally, including by the Walker Art Center. Her artwork and writing have been published in New American Paintings, Art Papers, and the National Endowment for the Arts publications. Bielak is currently working on a book project revolving around interior life and natural disaster. Her exhibition at Bethel University's Johnson Gallery on the same theme, Quake/Temblor, will be on view through January 16. Her website and a project site for her community-based project in San Ysidro will be completed soon. In the meantime, visit mnartists.org/susannah_bielak.
Inquiries about the work may be directed to susybielak@gmail.com.
Image credits: (Middle right) Edificios Revisados/walls like windows. Study, photo combining historic illustration with found photographs. (Middle center) Edificios Revisados/glass pours like water. Six prints pulled from formica tables, each 24" x 30". (Bottom) photo courtesy of the artist.