Susan Ossman’s “In The Wash”, on view April 9 to May 13, 2022 at Gallery 825 in Los Angeles, looks at human relationships with the natural world, the process of art making and how capitalism informs innovation and artistic creation. As an anthropologist and a visual artist, she blurs the lines between ethnography and art. Her training in both fields has enabled her to create works that merge disciplines to give us an insightful and astute look at the connection of our senses with work, time and value.
“In the Wash” depicts laundry drying in the open air, stretched across multiple canvases like sheets strung on a clothesline— informed by movement of a breeze and the generations of unnamed women whose hands pinned freshly washed linens to the lines. The exhibition folds us into a journey through time with old ways surrendering to new just as the color palette and paint application progresses from one piece to the next.
“Christo’s Laundry” uses classical oil painting techniques to evoke the gentle swaying of cloth on a still spring day. Visible brush strokes shape the wind-twisted folds of “Winter Wash”. “Caught in the Sheets” turns laundry into an exuberant field of summer color. These diverse styles and palettes encourage reflection on the interplay of style and signature in an artist’s work and identity.
A video accompaniment to the exhibition shows Ossman at work in her studio then follows how her the paintings inspired over 100 artists and scholars to collaborate in “On the Line,” a program of exhibitions, performances and participatory artworks in Riverside, California from 2012 through 2016.
