SUZANNE KLOTZ

: Suzanne Klotz

Suzanne Klotz instituted multi-cultural art programs and exhibitions in South Australia, West Africa, Mexico, Taiwan, Israel, Palestine, and in numerous states in the United States. Klotz’s artist-residencies include the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, Oklahoma Arts Institute and Lakeside Studio, Michigan. Klotz was an artist-in-residence and arts consultant for the South Australian Aborigines at an Aboriginal Center in Berri, South Australia. During the 1990’s Klotz arranged collaborative exhibitions between Israeli and Palestinian artists during guest artist residencies at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, a nongovernmental, non-political,
International Cultural Center, Jerusalem, Palestine.

Klotz’s awards include grants from the Pollock-Krasner Foundation, Puffin Foundation, Change Inc, 3 New York Artists’ Fellowships, Capelli d’Angeli Foundation, 2 National Endowment for the Arts Craftsman Fellowships, National Endowment for the Arts Dance and Performance Fellowship, Arizona Artists’ 3-D Fellowship, Arizona Governor’s Award for Women Who Create and Educate, Arizona Governor’s City Improvement Award for a commissioned public park sculpture, Texas Tech University’s Most Distinguished 2-D Graduate Alumni Award, and an endowed fund for Palestinian Educators dedicated to Suzanne Klotz.

Klotz attended Washington University in St. Louis for two years of undergraduate education. She holds a BFA Degree from the Kansas City Art Institute, MFA Degree from Texas Tech University, and Secondary Teaching Certification from the University of Missouri Kansas City.

Her academic appointments, Associate Professor of Fine Arts, include universities and schools of higher education in Arizona, California, Texas, Utah, and South Australia. Her art has been exhibited in over 300 exhibitions internationally since 1972 and is in numerous public, corporate and private collections.

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Much of my work juxtaposes realities built on the foundation of spiritual principles and goals, with social values based on the myth of ownership and illusions of alienation.

The materials are manipulated so as to appear to have opposite innate qualities. For example: hard surfaces appear soft and soft surfaces appear hard. Similarly, social relations involving authority and power are explored for their misuses and abuses of human rights. The surface reality presented by those in power (the media, the government, institutions), is inverted, via the same logic of the found materials and objects from the popular cultures that produced them. This process reveals the chimeras that may well be in our unexamined social consciousness

Art reflects the values of society and bridges the divide between the familiar and the unfamiliar. The creative process and product are invested with the power to elevate consciousness, encourage investigation of truth and assist in the advancement of a unified world society.

I attempt to create art that engages the viewer on visual, emotional and intellectual levels and upon investigation, the content expands. The work addresses, in an ironic way, contemporary attitudes towards gender roles, marriage, materialism, global, social and economic disparity, and the invisible lines that define borders.

Suzanne Klotz

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