Susan Hicks Bryant
Release Date: 3/23/2001. Expired: 5/19/2001
The Susan Hicks Bryant exhibit is coming to the Renaissance Center’s Visual Arts Gallery in April. Bryant’s hand-colored black and white photographs of architecture and landscapes will be on display through May 19.
Originally from Terre Haute Indiana, Bryant received her BA with an emphasis on painting from Indiana University in Bloomington. She then received her MFA with an emphasis on photography from Indiana State University in Terre Haute. She specializes in hand-coloring black and white photographs taken with a 35 mm and medium format panoramic camera.
“I realized I loved art in 7th grade art class,” states Bryant. “I had a great teacher. I realized I was good at art and I loved it. Drawing and painting were my first media of choice. My undergraduate degree was in drawing, painting and art education. Though I always took family photos, I didn’t think about photography as a medium of art until a post-graduate class I took at Indiana State University. Then I completed my MFA in photography.”
Bryant, Assistant Professor of Photography, is in her 19th year of teaching at Austin Peay State University. For two years prior to that, she taught part time at El Paso Community College.
Bryant continues, “For a while I had the opportunity to travel some during the summer. But usually, I have another reason for going to a different place and make it into a photo opportunity. I photograph what I find to be beautiful or magical or unusual.”
Among her many achievements, she has had 14 previous solo exhibitions, taken part in 57 selected juried and group exhibitions and has had her work displayed in the Nashville Airport. She was named to the Tennessee Arts Commission Individual Artist Fellowship (1991), received the Kodak Scholarship for Photographic Educators (1992) and was named “Best College Professor” in the Leaf Chronicle Competition (1997). She also exhibited in the 2000 Renaissance Regional Art Exhibit where her juried piece was purchased by Dickson’s Mayor and City Council and is on permanent display at The Renaissance Center.
Bryant learned about hand-coloring from her professor in graduate school. Having just finished a degree in painting, it seemed quite natural for her to continue to work with paint.
“I enjoy the hands on process of hand-coloring,” she states. “I enjoy getting the color on my skin and under my nails. I like the layering process...pencil over pastel over oil paint. I enjoy that I can choose the color subjectively in order to communicate my emotional response to the place I photographed.”
Preferring architecture and landscapes over other subjects, Bryant uses a camera with an elongated format that slightly distorts the image. “I like the stillness I can capture when there are no people in my photographs,” she explains. “I like the fact that it seems as if time is standing still. Yet, at the same time, the slight distortion adds a bit of anticipation to that stillness. I love the natural world (landscape) and man-made structures (architecture and other man-made objects) as evidence of human existence.
“I’m looking forward to exhibiting my new work at The Renaissance Center. Solo exhibits such as this give artists an opportunity to finish new work and to have it seen by others which completes the whole process.”
The Visual Arts Gallery can be visited 9 a.m. – 9 p.m. Monday through Saturday. For more information on this and other events at The Renaissance Center, call (615)740-5600.
Visit the Visual Arts Gallery page for more about the gallery.
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