About The Artist
Susan Chorpenning is an accomplished and award winning sculptor. After completing her M.A. and M.F.A at the University of California, Berkeley she moved to New York to continue her art career. There she participated in the Women’s Action Coalition, chaired the Art Action Committee in the 1990’s and campaigned for galleries to increase their representation of women, artists of color, and LGBTQ+ artists. Susan has since shown internationally, participated in various lectures and panels, and written numerous publications. She has been awarded several grants and residencies around the world, including Chinati, Wiesbaden, Omi, and Joshua Tree.
Historically Susan’s work has revolved around the concept of perception, of seeing. Using both natural and artificial light as the primary source of her work, Susan is influenced by meditation, the California sun, and her formative years in New York. In two recent series Inner Light and Outer Light both explore materiality versus immateriality, what can and cannot be captured. The series of Inner Light attempts to frame and capture the light constantly moving within it, while the Outer Light series are paintings with colored light seeping out from beneath. Each series playfully investigates the boundaries and definition of frame. Susan Chorpenning creates these works to invite the viewer to reflect, to pause, to breathe.
What is inner and what is outer?
Susan Chorpenning CV & SELECTED EXHIBITIONS
EDUCATION
BA, MA, MFA, University of California, Berkeley
GRANTS & AWARDS
2023 Camera Obscura Art Residency, Santa Monica, CA
2021 Joshua Tree Highlands Art Residency
2019 Award of Excellence, AZ Aqueous XXXIV, Tubac Art Center, Tubac, AZ
2017 Art Slant Sculpture Prize Showcase
2015 Art Slant Sculpture Prize Showcase
2008 Los Angeles DCA Award: Public Sculpture at Firehouse #4, 450 Temple St. LA
2001 Chinati Foundation Residency, Marfa, TX
1998 Artist in Residence, City of Wiesbaden, Germany
1997 ART/OMI International Residency, NY
1989 Gottlieb Foundation Fellowship
1989 Artists' Fellowship, NYC
1979 General Electric Corp. Materials Grant
COLLECTIONS
San Diego Museum of Art, San Diego CA
Montecedro Art Collection, Altadena CA
San Diego Civic Art Collection, San Diego CA
ART/OMI Foundation, Omi, NY
Ayala Land Company, Philippines
Bonnier Collection, Stockholm Sweden
Price Waterhouse Corporation, NYC
Private collections in France, Sweden, United States, Italy, and Germany.
SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS, SITEWORKS, PROJECTS
2023 Small Luminous Paintings, Dru Arstark Fine Art.
2021 Moon Rocks, Joshua Tree Highlands, permanent site work.
2021 Making Light of It, Loiter Galleries, Long Beach, CA.
2020 Save the USPS, Mail art project.
2017-2013 One Hundred Gifts, mail project, Los Angeles, CA.
2010 Fiat Lux IV, Phantom Galleries, Long Beach, CA.
2009 Granite Lookout, public work, Firehouse 4, 450 E. Temple, Los Angeles, CA.
2008 Fiat Lux III, Phantom Galleries, City of Long Beach, CA.
2007 Fiat Lux II, Phantom Galleries, Pasadena, CA.
2004 Dangerous Curve, Los Angeles, CA.
2004 Arnaud Lefebvre Gallery, Paris, France.
2004 Fiat Lux, Jim Kempner Fine Arts, NYC.
2001 Two Siteworks, Chinati Foundation, Marfa, TX.
2001 Drawings, The Locker Plant, Marfa, TX.
2001 Installation, Masonic Building (concurrent Flavin Symposium at Chinati) Marfa, TX.
2000 Gail Gates, Brooklyn, NY.
1999 Arnaud Lefebvre Gallery, Paris, France.
1999 Florence Lynch Gallery, NYC.
2001-1999 Kunstmuseum Heidenheim, Germany, and Städtische Galerie Würzburg, Germany.
1998 Brian Gross Fine Arts, San Francisco, CA.
1997 Two Siteworks, ART/OMI, Omi, NY.
1995 Sitework, 476 Broadway, NYC.
SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2023 Small Works, Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT.
2023 Hallway, Wright Contemporary, Taos, NM.
2023 Joyful, SCWCA Exhibitions, Fundraiser for LA Foodbank.
2022 Geometric Variations, SITE: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY.
2021 Painting 2011-2021, SITE: Brooklyn, Brooklyn, NY.
2021 A Lovely Day, SCWCA Exhibitions.
2023-2020 Art in the Time of Corona, A Global Art Project, DAB Art, Los Angeles, CA.
2020 Prayers for the Pandemic, Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ.
2020 At Midnight, Art on 30th, San Diego, CA.
2020 Purely Abstract, Kavanagh Gallery, St. Charles, IL.
2020 COVID-19, Galerie Arnaud Lefebvre, Paris.
2020 Attending to Wonder, GFAA, Gainesville, FL.
2019 AZ Aqueous XXXIV, juried, Tubac Art Center, Tubac, AZ.
2019 Bienvenue, Cité International des Arts, Paris.
2019 Brooklyn Art Library, Off the Grid, San Francisco Center for the Book, San Francisco, CA.
2019 Somewhere We Landed, Drawing Rooms, Jersey City, NJ.