I am fascinated by the physical-ness of things: how a flame moves, how trees bend, how water feels on the skin. I am especially fascinated by the invisible forces at work in living things. In particular, those forces associated with growth and renewal, but also its other side, death and decay.

My hands are convenient and frequent objects of interest. My fingers alone have so much going on below the surface: blood pumping, nerves sensing, muscles contracting. All of this movement, activity – life – happening unconsciously and for decades. Sometimes this unconscious becomes conscious. I become aware of all the goings-on under my skin, aware of my livingness. It is both exciting and frightening, this awareness of my vitality and its intrinsic finiteness.

This is the kind of experience I am trying to generate in my viewers. My hope is that upon seeing my work an initial attraction can become something more, a recognition – perhaps of growth and decay, strength and fragility, transformation, endings, . . . essentially change, but simultaneously the continuity of life.

One way I share these ideas is through the use of fruit forms. The very aliveness of fruit – rich color, plumpness, ripeness – and then the speed with which they peak and begin to decay, make them a great template for exploring my ideas. I build these fruit on an oversized, human-mass scale, so that the viewer might relate to them on a more personal level.

I believe an awareness of the unconscious and conscious processes of living and its eventual and unknowable end can make life more beautiful. The beauty of the ephemeral. . . a flutter, a burble, a touch; this beauty is what I am trying to evoke with my artwork.

Susan Clusener