Artist · Holland Tunnel 2026
Susan Walsh
Photographer · Painter · Sculptor · Video artist
Susan Walsh is a Beacon artist who records the passage of time through sun, wind, rain and waves, working across photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and video. In The Dark Abyss of Time she showed the photograph Time Story #13 and stones gathered on Mount Beacon.
Verified · 5 sources
Biography
Susan Walsh earned a BA in television and film from Northern Illinois University, studied at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and received an MFA in photography from the University of Illinois Chicago in 1993. After exhibiting in Chicago and New Mexico in the 1990s, she settled in Beacon, where she has a studio. Her work takes calendars, clocks and other human ways of measuring time and sets them against natural processes such as sunlight moving across a surface, wind, rain and sea waves.
She often lets those forces make the marks, as in her wind drawings and sun drawings. Solo exhibitions include Only The Sun Can Prove That I Am Useful (2014) and Only Mark the Bright Hours (2017) at Matteawan Gallery, Vibrant Traces at the Garrison Art Center (2019), and I Could Save Time at Hudson Beach Glass Gallery in Beacon (2024). Internationally she has shown in When the Wind Blows at Kunst Haus Wien in Vienna (2022), with an accompanying De Gruyter book, and in Signs of Impermanence in Tokyo (2023).
She made a site-specific installation during a 2013 residency at DRAWinternational in Caylus, France, and was a Saltonstall fellow in 2018. For The Dark Abyss of Time she showed Time Story #13, a sun-drawing photograph made on the spring equinox, along with gneiss stones from Mount Beacon fitted with clay bases and small crucibles, and her Strata works.
Practice. Photography, drawing, painting, sculpture and video that let sun, wind, rain and waves leave marks. These natural traces are set against human systems of timekeeping, and the work explores the tension between control and entropy.
Holland Tunnel record
Every show and performance at Holland Tunnel, with the artists who were part of it.
- 2026
Connections
Who Susan has shown or played with at Holland Tunnel, plus collaborators in the directory.Shown togetherWider circle
Wider circle
- Greg SlickCurated her into Look Back in Wonder (2020) and The Dark Abyss of Time (2026); fellow Beacon artist, both shown at Matteawan Gallery and Garrison Art Center
- Elisa PritzkerCo-curator of Look Back in Wonder (2020)
- Alison McNultyCurated Listening to the Land, Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh (2023)
- Liddy Scheffknecht and Verena Kaspar-EisertCurators of When the Wind Blows, Vienna (2022)
- Debra and Darren KlompchingCurators of Fresh 2023
- Harmony HammondCurated OUTWEST, Santa Fe (1999)
- The Loofah MethodChicago multimedia performance group, 1991–92
Career timeline
- 1982BA in television and film, Northern Illinois University
- 1991–1992Member of the Chicago multimedia performance group The Loofah Method
- 1993MFA in photography, University of Illinois Chicago
- 1999OUTWEST, Plan B Evolving Arts, Santa Fe, curated by Harmony Hammond
- 2010Habitat for Artists residency, Garrison, NY
- 2013DRAWinternational residency and site-specific installation, Caylus, France
- 2014Solo exhibition Only The Sun Can Prove That I Am Useful, Matteawan Gallery, Beacon
- 2015Honorable mention, Line Describing a Cone, Katonah Museum of Art (juror Eva Respini)
- 2017Solo exhibition Only Mark the Bright Hours, Matteawan Gallery
- 2018Fellow, Constance Saltonstall Artist Residency; wind drawings for the Beacon Bus Shelter Project
- 2019Solo exhibition Vibrant Traces, Garrison Art Center
- 2022When the Wind Blows, Kunst Haus Wien / Museum Hundertwasser, Vienna
- 2023Signs of Impermanence, Tokyo; Fresh 2023, Klompching Gallery
- 2024Solo exhibition I Could Save Time, Hudson Beach Glass Gallery, Beacon
- 2026The Dark Abyss of Time, Holland Tunnel Revisited, Newburgh
Selected exhibitions
| 2026 | The Dark Abyss of Time | Holland Tunnel Revisited, Newburgh, NY |
|---|---|---|
| 2024 | I Could Save Time (solo) | Hudson Beach Glass Gallery, Beacon, NY |
| 2023 | Signs of Impermanence | Jinny Street Gallery, Tokyo, Japan |
| 2023 | Fresh 2023 | Klompching Gallery, Brooklyn, NY |
| 2023 | Listening to the Land | Ann Street Gallery, Newburgh, NY |
| 2023 | Volume Up: Artists Respond to Music and Sound | The Painting Center, New York, NY |
| 2022 | When the Wind Blows (Wenn der Wind weht) | Kunst Haus Wien, Museum Hundertwasser, Vienna, Austria |
| 2020 | Look Back in Wonder (virtual) | Arts Mid-Hudson, Poughkeepsie, NY |
| 2019 | Vibrant Traces (solo) | Garrison Art Center, Garrison, NY |
| 2017 | Only Mark the Bright Hours (solo) | Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY |
| 2015 | From this Vantage Point (solo) | Center for Digital Arts, Peekskill, NY |
| 2015 | Line Describing a Cone | Katonah Museum of Art, Katonah, NY |
| 2014 | Only The Sun Can Prove That I Am Useful (solo) | Matteawan Gallery, Beacon, NY |
| 1999 | OUTWEST | Plan B Evolving Arts, Santa Fe, NM |
Publications
- 2022When the Wind Blows: Air, Wind and Breath in Contemporary Art (eds. Liddy Scheffknecht and Ernst Strouhal) · De Gruyter
- 2023Signs of Impermanence (exhibition catalogue) · Zerofeedback
- 2023Fresh 2023 (exhibition catalogue) · Klompching Gallery
Press
- 2026Holland Tunnel Returns The Highlands Current (Marc Ferris)
- 2024Susan Walsh interview: Artist marks time on paper, sculpture Times Union