essays: Sensemann's photomontages
Impersonations
Leisa A. Rundquist
To impersonate is to mimic, to don another’s character. The multiplicity of states found in Susan Sensemann’s photographs act out an intimate self-portrait that thematically suggests waves of regression and regeneration. Each montage is a unique representation of the artist merged with organic matter, architectural elements, mosaic surfaces, classical statuary or kitsch lawn ornaments. The masks, grotesques and specters that evolve through serendipitous matching and overlay of photographic material emerge from swarthy, lush backgrounds; as if drawn from the depths of the unconscious. Sensemann creates a reflection or conceptual record of the true self, brimming with repressed appetites and tendencies, often literally rearing its ugly head.
Skin. The soft, pliable material which covers the human body; dividing the inside form outside. A visible measure of youth and beauty. The largest sensory organ. Sensemann plays with skin, transforms it, allows its decay. She becomes a chameleon, absorbing tactile moss, seaweed, and cacti into her flesh. Her eyes enliven the milky, marbleized features of a 17th century statue or the flaking plaster pout of a common garden gnome. This sampling or masquerading of other is a fertile ground for autobiographical expression. The artist describes herself as, “an unapologetic narcissist…my merge with other subjects is my internal drive made visible.” Sensemann’s skin is in a sense turned inside out, revealing the internal psychological and biological battleground of a woman entering middle age. With dark humor, she investigates and questions gender, the aging process and perceived truths of what it means to be human.
“As the author of my own disguise, I become the man, the maiden, and the monster, an embodiment of vertiginous excess. Borrowing the Gothic narrative structure with its hypersaturated color and hyperbolic story line, this series focuses on the monster as a hybrid of fear and desire, perversion and excessive generativity. Half finished, disruptive, and uncanny, the monster eludes capture.” — Sensemann
The latent horror in Sensemann’s photographs feeds upon the violation of boundaries, a disregard for the natural laws associated with gender, plant/human, animal/human, and inanimate object/human divisions. Her images are strangely sensual, yet disturbing. Could it be that in this postmodern era we are keenly aware that Sensemann’s hybrids foretell of the future? Tomorrow’s technology promises the merging of foreign bodies/materials with the human body; consider current day advances in implants, faux skin, and cloning. Progress tests more than just our aesthetic view and knowledge, it also pushes limits of moral acceptance. Sensemann reminds us that unnatural hybridization and composite bodies (monsters more refined than Shelley’s Frankenstein), are already in our midst. What miracles and terrors are to come?
Disturbing too is the dichotomy of attraction (beauty) and repulsion simultaneously employed by Sensemann. This sensibility in her work stems from a critical interest in the 19th century Gothic literary tradition. In particular, Sensemann cites the contemporary revisionist author, Judith Halberstam whose description of the term Gothic includes, “the disruption of realism and of all generic purity, Gothic style is designed to produce fear and desire at the same time.” (Skin Shows: Gothic Horror and the Technology of Monsters, Duke University Press, 1995) Sensemann draws inspiration from Halberstam’s theories, in particular her concept of monstrosity as a “changing historically and culturally conditioned set of fears.” These fears include prejudice against “race, class, gender, and sexuality.” Depending upon our own background and experience, Sensemann’s shapeshifting may appear magical, threatening or both. We imprint her photography with our own associations allowing her imagery to become a site which presents fluid, multiple interpretations. Identity is not fixed. The artist pretends in order to construct an ever-changing understanding of self.