Suzanne Hodes,CM

Growing up in New York City I attended the High School of Music and Art and went often to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to learn from Cezanne. As a student at Radcliffe, I met and was encouraged by Agnes Mongan, then Curator of Drawings at the Fogg Museum, and through her support studied for two summers at the Skowhegan School in Maine. This intense experience led me to transfer to Brandeis and to major in studio art, taking courses with Arthur Polonsky and Mitchell Siporin. A summer studying with Oskar Kokoschka at his "School of Vision" in Salzburg was a major influence. Later I found work in New York, teaching science at the Fashion Institute of Technology and as a studio assistant at the Pratt Graphic Center.

As a graduate student at Columbia University, I worked with my advisor Meyer Schapiro, on my thesis "The Comparison of Form and Structure in the Paintings of Vermeer and Mondrian," relating the tightly composed realistic space of Vermeer to the syncopated rhythms and abstract structure of Mondrian. I was very much inspired by the power and energy of the New York Abstract Expressionist artists.

For many years I have been attempting to portray my experience of city life. I am drawn to collage and collage-like images that combine disparate and unexpected elements. I hope these impressions will reveal multiple perceptions and interpretations to the viewer. I also want to suggest associations of time and memory, and the relationship and interaction of images, both past and present, in an attempt to mirror the workings of the mind.