Susan Kaplow
These sculptures arose from my woman-loving gaze on and joyful habitation of the female body. The female body as seen by this artist differs from the male gaze and defiantly so.
The abstract work celebrates the beauty of the vulva, the site of female sexual pleasure. It also invokes the mystery of the opening to fertility and birth.
In the figurative work, I explore the woundedness from breast cancer that affects so many women, including myself. There is deep questioning, new life from the wound, and a beauty that defies conventional attitudes about women’s bodies.
Susan Kaplow is a multi-media artist whose most recent works are abstract and figurative sculptures made from hand-felted fiber, other natural materials and clay. These formed the centerpiece of her recent solo show at Ceres Gallery, NYC in October, 2019. The themes Kaplow is most interested in exploring are women’s empowerment, illness and healing, how blessings may flow from curses and new life from old wounds, and Judaism from a feminist and lgbt perspective.
Kaplow’s installation, Abomination: Wrestling with Leviticus 18, was featured at the Bernard Heller Museum, NYC in a show titled The Sexuality Spectrum. Subsequently, the installation traveled to the Sherwin-Miller Museum in Tulsa, OK. Her Wisdom of the Mothers was shown at the Lowy Winkler Rare Book Center in Los Angeles and at the Bernard Museum of Judaica in NYC.
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