UPCOMING EVENTS

My solo exhibition "Homebodies"

reviewed by Mark Jenkins

on May 19, 2019

in The Washington Post 

 

Suzie Tuchman

“What is it like to be a girl?” That’s one of the questions, written by children on lined paper, that Suzie Tuchman has hung on a laundry line at Harmony Hall Arts Center. The artist’s “Homebodies” doesn’t directly answer the child’s query. But it does have something to say about being a homemaker.

The largest single piece in the show, “Domestic Majesty,” is a gown made of steel wool and wire mesh, fitted to someone about 10 feet tall. Tuchman has also erected a “Mother House” of yellow sponges and green scouring pads, and she filled a wall with “Archive of Domesticity,” which arrays clumps of variously tinted lint in plastic food containers. Nearly all of the Maryland artist’s materials are commonly found in American kitchens and laundry rooms.

Tuchman says her art “explores and celebrates the embedded spiritual elements in the repetitive tasks” of housework.

Spirituality is in the eye of the beholder, but “Homebodies” does embody two qualities that are helpful around the house: humor and ingenuity.

Suzie Tuchman: Homebodies Through May 25 at Harmony Hall Arts Center, 10701 Livingston Rd., Fort Washington, Md.

absorbing domesticity
Mother Knows Best, 2016
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domestic armor (2)
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IMG_20160307_114524655
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Embodied Labor, 2018
Archive of Domesticity, 2018
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tuchman-remember open
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Laundry Lines, 2016
Embodied Labor, 2018 (detail)
Lines of Questioning, 2017
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closeup of 3D printed ring
Filtering For Life, 2017
Codex Domesticus, 2017
Domestic Party, 2017
Queen of the Laundry, 2015
Pocket Book, 2014
Mother Nest
Mother House, 2017
Mother Knows Best, 2016
Domestic Majesty1
Filtering for Life, 2016
Too Much on my Plate,2016
Queen of the Laundry (obverse view)
Internal Systems, 2017
Domestic Beauty, 2016
Windows of Jerusalem, 2016
Succah Book, 2014
Tuchman-Sukkah 1.JPG
Domestic Beauty, 2016
Domestic Party, 2016 (detail)
 

available for workshops in book binding,
printmaking, papermaking and sculpture

Artist Statement

My artwork investigates embedded spiritual meaning in the repetitive tasks of everyday domestic practices.  I look at the home and the work that makes a home from a religious and spiritual perspective and explore the fulfilment and inevitable humor and in being a home maker and mother.


To maintain a home, repetitious tasks such as cleaning, cooking, doing laundry and child-rearing are performed. Domestic work relies on a process of transformation, which creates order where there was none. The constant cycle of work creates meaning, and it is through this embodied and deep mechanism that knowledge is made and preserved.  Artifacts of domesticity, such as household detritus, provide remnants of past cycles of meaning making and I use these artifacts to explore how domestic knowledge is created, transferred and preserved between generations.


By elevating cleaning materials with unusual or incongruous properties and textures into garments and sculptures, I investigate the juxtaposition between meaning and labor. Through these materials and domestic practices, I create works which move from a personal spiritual practice into a broad reconsideration of what domestic knowledge can be.

©2018 BY SUZIE TUCHMAN. PROUDLY CREATED WITH WIX.COM

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