"Susan Wides invites us to come alive to vision as a kind of inventiveness, an integrative faculty that, moment by moment, connects us to our surroundings and, ultimately, to one another."
Carter Ratcliff
Susan Wides: Seeing Seen


VOICE OF SILENCE Solo exhibition at Private Public Gallery. September 28 - November 2, 2024. Hudson, NY.

CHRONOGRAM Voice of Silence: Photography by Susan Wides at Private Public Gallery in Hudson, October 9, 2024. By Taliesin Thomas

UPSTATE DIARY Susan Wides: Voice of Silence. Private Public Gallery Hudson, NY October 2, 2024. By David Ebony

THE HUDSON RIVER MUSEUM: Rivers Flow | Artists Connect. February 2 – September 1, 2024. Yonkers, NY.
Curated by Jennifer McGregor and Laura Vookles

To view more images from a body of work, please contact the studio.

The Name of And (1989-1993) was made in botanical gardens throughout North America, partly in response to the loss of friends from AIDS. While creating these photographs, I came across the Luce Irigaray’s essay, “Belief Itself” in Sexes and Genealogies. Her words wove through my mind as I articulated the layered associations of the flowers in their seasonal cycle of growth, decline, and rest:

“Love, pain, life and death are kept there, secret, enigmatic, barely breathing out their melody beyond or through all speakable words.”

In my translation of the rich language of flowers, the horticultural nameplates amplify and unlock new meanings. Steeped in myths and cultural symbolism, the names are manipulated to swim in and out of focus to create an interplay of image and words like found poetry—sometimes ironic, sometimes filled with longing.

--Susan Wides