Susanne Kaspar

Biography

Susanne Kaspar was born in Silesia and  raised in a small German village in the romantic Neckar valley. Her sense of serenity and beauty which marks her work was greatly influenced by that enchanting environment.  1966 she moved to the U.S.A. In Berkeley, CA, she pursued her interest in photography and has been working as an art and commercial photographer for 30 years. Her photographs have been widely published in the USA and internationally. She is represented in permanent collections at the Princeton and Boise Art Museums.

Statement

I came to photography in Germany at age 17 and have been persuing it in the United States since 1972. In my career of 30 years , I meandered through different areas, perceptions and usages. All, I found fascinating and challenging since I am  continually curious about newness.
My early art photography consisted mainly of nudes. In collaboration with a dance workshop, we muted the skin with different medias like sand, paint or mud to blend the form of the body into it’s surroundings in nature; may it be the beach, a cave or the muddy waters of a wild hotspring, a washed out rootformation into which the mudclad bodies nestled and to the eye almost disappeared.
Following this exploration of similarity of form between man and nature came the focus on bare beauty and form of the body. Those are studio photographs taken during the time I devoted most of my photography to commercial work, mainly fashion.  From the form of the body it was not far to discover the beautiful shapes and colors of fruit, vegetables and flowers. The most appreciated works from this period are a root vegetable poster, a pear poster and two orchid posters.
Much cherished are the handpainted polaroid transfers of fruit and vegetables. That work gave me the hands-on experience, feeling a different intimacy, which, using the camera does not give.