Susannah Papish
I am a visual artist and the scope of my practice includes painting, curating and writing. Since 2017, I have maintained a gallery, boundary, a contemporary visual arts project space located in my renovated garage. In 2020, I was included in the Artists Run Chicago 2.0 exhibition and received the inaugural Artists Run Chicago award. I keep an active studio practice as a painter and am engaged in intuitive painting processes with watercolor and oil paint. My images and ideas are drawn from sources and research that include the history of pigments and dyes and eco-feminism as it relates to a painting practice. Inspired from the generative forms found in the natural world, my painting captures an essence of plant and animal bodies in vibrant hues and intricate textures. My collage images are similar in content, yet more explicitly evoke sexual organs and fertility.
In 2021, Melissa H. Potter and I created the Invisible Labors garden, a micro-prairie in my front yard. Melissa proposed the idea of planting native plants, as they are carbon remediators keeping in mind the unwavering force of climate change. We planted a garden that pollinators such as milkweed, native seedlings, rare native seeds, and plants whose fibers are suitable for use in hand-made, plant-based paper-making. This garden was the inspiration for our artist book Invisible Labors: Reviving Histories of Women's Landwork in the Blue Island Ridge Community of Chicago, Illinois and was released in Spring, 2023. In 2022 and 2023 we have hosted events at the Jane Addams Hull House Museum and the Ingersoll Blackwelder Mansion to present our project to the public.
I am a life-long Chicagoan, and I currently live in the Morgan Park neighborhood on the south side of Chicago with my two sons, dog, and three cats.
Featured Artworks
Invisible Labors: Reviving Histories of Women's Land Work in the Blue Island Ridge Communities, Chicago, Illinois
Invisible Labors, full foldout, 2023, photo credit Tom Van Eynde
Invisible Labors: Reviving Histories of Women's Land Work in the Blue Island Ridge Communities, Chicago, Illinois
Potter's handmade burdock paper insert
Untitled, oil on panel, 12 x 16", 2020
Untitled, oil on panel, 12 x 16", 2020
Susannah Papish has crowd-funded a project with 3AP
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- $6,347 raised of $4,400 goal
- 0 Days 0:00:00 LEFT
To honor the little-known contributions of Chicago’s early women agricultural and cultural workers, I am collaborating on a new publication entitled Invisible Labors, inspired by a recent research and garden project in the Morgan Park and Beverly neighborhoods formerly known …
Read more about Invisible Labors