Susan Ossman
2025
GATHER WOOD, GATHER WORDS
Rizq Art Initiatve, Abu Dhabi (April 16- 26)
This exhibition was the fruit of a multi-site collaboration that seeks to bridge divides of manual and intellectual labor, nature and culture. The artworks were inspired by the ceaseless work of gathering wood for village cookstoves or bundling rice to bring to market, by the rustle of the desert winds that fertilize the Amazon with Saharan sand. Attention to bindings led to reflections on how words gathered as law or tradition shape human fortunes and bodies and the planet.
WINDSWEPT
Wonzimer Gallery, Los Angeles
March 21-April 18, Curated by Genie Davis
Windswept was conceived around fifteen paintings by Susan Ossman with sculptural, photographic, collage, video, and installation works by Dani Dodge, Angelica Sotiriou, Beth Elliott, Linda Sue Price, Snezana Saraswati Petrovic, Diane Cockerill, Bruce Cockerill, Scott Meskill, Eileen Oda, Jason Jenn, Nancy Kay Turner, David Isakson, and Nancy Voegeli-Curan.
STATES OF EXCEPTION
Susan Ossman
Curated by Mika Cho
Silverman Gallery, California State University Los Angeles
January 21-February 20
Political theorists have encouraged us to think of states of exception as states of the suspension of law, the handiwork of the tyrant, or the tyrannical. In her multifarious aesthetic inquiries, Susan Ossman manifests the acuity of her vision of the tyrannical. She does not, however, rest with the fashionable presumption that all is political. She acquaints us and confronts us with many other states of exception. On the dark side, she treats the existential condition of migrants without homes or succor, the hallucinatory devastation of the deceived lover, the nomadic wandering and wondering of the diseased, suffering, ever-mindful mindful body, threatened with death. On the bright side, she has unveiled in media extending far beyond the pictorial the ecstasy of passions exceptional even as they partake of the everyday: the visceral ecstasy of erotic and auratic passion, the breathtaking glow of a poppy, the scent and texture of the many places she calls home.
2024
Gather Wood, Gather Words
Susan Ossman
American Legation Museum, Tangiers, Morocco. 31
May- 1 December.
Performance in collaboration with Ayoub Lahlouh and Momkin.
"Planet First," play by William R. Duell, Susan Ossman research collaborator and dramaturge, Staged Reading, main Street Theater, Houston, April 1.
2022
California 101, Redondo Beach CA.September 2-18.
Solo Exhibition: In the Wash, Gallery 825, Los Angeles, April-May.
One and Many: Transformative Public Artwork, Museum of Riverside,
March 3, 5-8pm.
Drama, Storytelling in Art, collective exhibition juried and curated by Ziying Duan, Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, Santa Ana CA, February 5-March 191, 2022.
Water is Thicker than Blood. collective exhibition, curated by Rachel Poonsiriwong,
Root Division Gallery, San Francisco,
January 7- February 12.
2021
Self Portrait in Place, solo exhibition, Combes Gallery, American University of Paris 9 December- 30 January.
Art and Anthropology, Workshop and Lecture, 25-27 November, University of Laussane, Switzerland.
Self Portrait in Montmartre, 16 May, walking tour portrait, Montmartre quarter, Paris, France.
2020
Indistinct Chatter, (On Line group exhibition), Gallery 825, LAAA, July 1-10.
Type (group exhibition curated by Evan Senn) , College of the Golden West Gallery, March 5- June 30.
Calm, Centered, Torn, Stitched, Knotted ( group exhibition curated by Cindy Rine), Chaffey Community Museum, Ontario California, February 23-March 27.
Threads of Truth, Social Impact and Fiber Arts, group exhibition, juried and curated by Sergio Gomez, Zhou B. Arts Center, Chicago, Il. January 21-February 26.
2019
In Gold We Trust, group exhibition, juried by Leonardo Bravo, Art on 30th, San Diego, October 19-November 18, 2019.
COY, group exhibition juried and curated by Phyllis Hofberg, Gallery 825, Los Angeles Art Association, September 14- November 1, 2019.
Ink and Clay, group exhibition, juried by Michele Cairella-Fillmore, Kellog Gallery, California Polytchnic Institute Pomona, September 7- November 23, 2019.
The Body in Parts, group exhibition, Gestalt Projects, BG Gallery, Santa Monica, CA. August 24-September 7.
Applied Science, group exhibition curated by Marissa Caichiolo ), Gallery 825 Los Angeles Art Association
Art Theater for the Mind , Group exhibition curated by Gene Sasse, Inland Empire Museum of Art, Upland ,CA. June 2-July 7.
InTRansit, Curated performance and participatory artwork with Ana Maria Hernando and Tadeo Muliero and The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop (MMTW), Building Bridges Art Exchange, Santa Monica, CA, USA, September 28, 2019.
2018
Feminine Abstractions. Two person exhibition with Cheryl Walker, curated by Ariane Dalla Dia, Mill and Mind, Riverside, CA, June 15-August 10.
Traverse Heritage, Voice, Body, Movement, Art, Devised and performed with the The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop (MMTW), Hermitage Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands, May 2018.
2017
Competence/Incompetence, Devised and performed with The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop (MMTW), Santa Monica Arts Center, Barcelona, Spain, September 2017.
Wissen/Schaffen ,Two person exhibition with Claire Lambe, Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 7 June-8 July, 2017.
Walls, Devised and performed with The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop (MMTW), Kapelle der Versöhnung/ Berlin Wall Monument, Berlin, Germany, June 30 and July 1,2017.
Walls, group exhibition curated by Susan Ossman and Lisa Strehmann, Berlin Wall Monument/ Kapelle der Versöhnung, June-1 July 1, 2017.
2016
On the Line (Series of evolving pop-up group exhibitions for Susan Ossman's On the Line project), Riverside Public Libraries, Arlanza March 4, La Sierra April 16 and Casa Blanca, May 21, 2016.
On the Line: 2016, (Suite of three solo exhibitions), Arlanza, La Sierra and Casa Blanca Libraries, Riverside, CA, February- May 2016.
Moving Matters Memory Books, group exhibition, Culver Center for the Arts, Riverside, CA. March 2016.
The Arts of Migration, group exhibition curated by Alexandru Balasescu, Center for Ideas and Society, UC Riverside, Riverside, CA.
My Memory your History, group exhibition and participatory artwork, collectively curated by the Moving Matters Traveling Wrokshop, Gallery Typographia, Bucharest, Romania, July 13-18.
2015
Hanging Out, group exhibition developed from Ossman's "On the Line" project, After Image Gallery, Riverside, CA. February-March 2015.
2014
Objects in/of Migration, group Exhibition, The Moving Matters Traveling Workshop, Allard Pierson Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities, Amsterdam, June 2014.
Objects in/of Migration, Devised and performed, Allard Pierson Museum of Mediterranean Antiquities, Amsterdam, Netherlands, June 6.
2013
Ordinary Extraordinary, solo exhibition, Medical School Exhibition Space, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA, March 15 –October 15.
On the Line, solo exhibition, Brandstater Gallery, La Sierra University, Riverside, CA, February 11 -March 11.
2012
The Fabric of Fieldwork, two person exhibition with WESSIELING, Brunei Gallery, School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 13 April - 23 June.