Introduction by Valentina De Pasca
This monograph on Susanna Bauer presents the artist’s work to an international audience for the first time in book form. The essential ingredients of Bauer’s artistic production are the ephemeral natural elements that she encounters during walks and hikes in the South-West of the UK, where she lives and works. They are leaves, stones, twigs… elements that become the heart of more elaborate creations rendered with crochet – sometimes used conventionally as a decoration, other times as a sculptural means of communication.
Bauer’s leaves are airy sculptures in which the artist pursues a balance between strength and fragility. Nature becomes a metaphor for humanity: the artfully interwoven threads remind us that we are all part of a vaster network and therefore generators of connections. But it also stands for life: viewing these works it is impossible not to reflect on the confluences of beauty and vulnerability, resistance, and transformation.
The theme of the relationship between art and nature, and the ensuing interconnections, are investigated both through Bauer’s original work and in an introductory essay that analyses her oeuvre within the broader context of the history of art.
Trilingual edition English, French, Italian
Susanna Bauer was born in Eichstätt, Germany in 1969 and was raised in the countryside surrounded by woods and rivers, where she developed a passion for nature and the land. As a small child she learned about plants in her grandmother’s garden, and from the age of six she was taught knitting, crochet, and other textile crafts. Susanna’s affinity with plants, along with her love of art, led her to study Landscape Architecture at the “Technische Universität” in Munich from 1988 to 1992, and during that time she also worked at the “Jardin des Plantes” in Montpellier, France.
Driven by her innate creativity she went on to train as a modelmaker, specialising in miniature work, and spent two decades working in film and advertising. In 2003 she met her partner, the artist Paul Fry, and for many years balanced her time between working in London and visiting him in Cornwall in the rural Southwest of England, where long walks along the coastline and in sub-tropical gardens rekindled her love of the landscape. From 2007 to 2008 she studied at Camberwell College of Art in London and started to combine her love of nature with her finely tuned technical skills, laying the foundation for her future art practice.
Susanna then relocated to Cornwall, a place that has significantly influenced her as an artist, and in 2010 the birth of her son brought with it a new sensitivity to the fragility of life, human connection, and the beauty of the natural world, all of which find expression in her work. Susanna has exhibited in the UK, USA, Sweden, Italy, The Netherlands, Switzerland, Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan and India, and her work has appeared in many publications including The Guardian, Politiken, Io Donna / Corriere della Sera, Public Art, Sculpture, American Craft, Surface Design, and Flow International. Susanna now lives and works in Somerset, UK.
Valentina De Pasca is an art historian and publishing professional. She is the author, among others, of the introductory essay Maria Lai. I luoghi dell’arte a portata di mano (5 Continents Editions, 2021), and the volume, produced in collaboration with Alessandra Falconi, Atelier inclusivi con l’Art Brut. Percorsi per la scuola primaria (Edizioni Centro Studi Erickson, 2021).