the ANCESTORS
1989-1999
By 1987 the computer revolution was starting to shift daily life into overdrive. With upgrades to the two computer systems in the Art and Art History Dept. at Santa Clara University, I was now able to import video stills and draw freehand. There was something enticing about dragging ancient history into the digital realm, and I began creating montages that contemplate life and culture. A poem I wrote at the time:
I dreamt of one who knows the secrets of all the people who ever lived.
She said “Your ancestors will whisper themselves into you.
They are often wise, but beware of their ignorant obsessions.
Many are not in their right minds.”
Patrick Maun in the Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Volume 5, No. 9, September 1997 “Susan Felter uses the computer for a classic montage style. She assembles unrelated images and creates new relationships between the combined elements. What is particularly refreshing about her approach is that she avoids a common pitfall of mistaking technological effects for distinctly individual thoughts and vision. Her computer art represents a fusion of several media - painting, photography, and filmmaking. Originally drawing faces and cartoon-like characters, she later began to combine photographic images and add painterly elements. In her digital work, Felter retains the radiant sense of color that makes her photographic work so distinctive. With her love of Hollywood movies and her fine art background, Felter's attraction for people and fantasy are evident in her imagery.”
Awards
1987. Arthur Vining Davis Faculty Fellowship, Santa Clara University
Publications
1997. Leonardo Electric Almanac, review of "Graduation: Animation and Digital Art Festival,” The MIT Press Journals
1994. On Line Design, printed magazine, San Francisco, March Issue
Solo Exhibitions
2015. FredFOTOarts Gallery, Susan Felter: Retrospective on Three Screens, Fredericksburg, VA
2010. de Saisset Museum, Working With Dreams: Susan Felter 1978 – 2010, Santa Clara, CA
1997. de Saisset Museum, The Educated Eye, Santa Clara, CA
Group Exhibitions
1994-5. Holmes Fine Art Gallery, Action Experimental Art, Part I, and Part II, San Jose, CA
1989. Mary Porter Sesnon Gallery, UC Santa Cruz, Alternate Applications: Computer Technology in the Arts, Santa Cruz, CA