current, Upcoming and recent Media, Exhibitions, Installations and Residencies
CURRENT
FLOOD 2.0, Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT, April 14 - June 2, 2024. Flood 2.0 is a multi-disciplinary installation by the three-person collective, Water Women, comprised of Krisanne Baker, Susan Hoffman Fishman and Leslie Sobel, which includes 2 video projections; multiple scrolls painted to evoke the motions of flood waters; a make-shift boat, sails and mast; and the performance of a Greek Chorus telling the story of Noa, the lone female survivor whose name in Hebrew means “action.” Flood 2.0’s goal is to use art, flood mythology and history to inspire community dialogue on local water issues
Installation views of Flood 2.0 at the Ely Center Of Contemporary Art, New Haven, CT
Biophilia: In Excelsis, Yale University Institute of Sacred Music, New Haven, CT, March 27 - May 3,, 2024.
Biophilia in Excelsis is an exhibition that focuses ons the theme of sacred ecosystems, including oceans and forests, and their imminent transformation due to increased global warming. Curated by M. Annenberg, it brings together twenty-two artists who represent different cultural backgrounds, generations and geographic locations, and who explore the concept of Biophilia, the love of life.
Opening Reception and Panel Discussion including Dr. Gavin Schmidt, Director NASA, Goddard Institute for Space Studies; Artists Susan Hoffman Fishman, Eleanor Goldstein and Paul D. Miller, aka DJSpooky. Moderated by M. Annenberg. Live stream of the conversation YouTube.
MEDIA
Climate Now, Embracing the Earth, Reflecting the Science by Abby Luby, April 9, 2024.
“Hoffman Fishman’s work in the exhibit “The Earth Is Breaking Beautifully 1: Dead Sea Sinkholes, 2021” (Acrylic, oil pigment, mixed media on paper, 30” x 30”) presents a transformed satellite image of sinkhole pools in startling azure and deep olive surrounded by heavy, undulating flows of natural toned thick pigment. Hoffman Fishman’s intent is to emphasize “the contrast between the horrifying destruction around the Dead Sea and the beauty of that destruction.”
Artists Open Path to Grappling With Climate Change, by Brian Slattery, New Haven Independent, April 2, 2024
Fishman’s language, starting with the title, is jarring; it talks about climate change in a way we’re not used to. Typically we hear about climate change in opposed political terms. On one side are those who deny it’s happening. On the other are those who accept the science but frame it in purely destructive terms. Fishman’s language makes room for another sentiment: a sense of awe.
Susan Hoffman Fishman, The Earth is Breaking Beautifully #1: Dead Sea Sinkholes,, acrylic, oil pigment and mixed-media on paper, 30” x 30,” 2021 at Yale Institute of Sacred Music
Susan Hoffman Fishman discusses her work on a panel presentation for Biophilia: In Excelsis. Additional panelists include Marcia Annenberg, Curator; Dr. Gavin Schmidt, the NASA director at the Goddard Institute of Space Studies; artist Eleanor Goldstein and Paul D. Miller aka DJ Spooky (not shown.)
Exquisite River at Ely Center of Contemporary Art, New Haven,CT. April 14 - June 2, 2024. a collaborative installation created by members of the Artists Think About Water collective (TAW), meanders through two of the galleries at the Ely Center of Contemporary Art and includes 30 environmental artists/activists in the US and abroad whose work addresses global water issues. Exquisite River is comprised of 19 works of art, each focusing on a particular river, forming one continuous flowing river - a river of images of rivers.
Susan Hoffman Fishman, Jordan River Desertification, DETAIL, satellite images, cyanotype and acrylic on paper, 11.5” x 60,” 2023.
Imagining Water: Myth, Ritual and a Changing Planet by Susan Hoffman Fishman published in Image Journal, Number 120, Spring, 2024
13 images from the series In the Beginning There Was Only Water (2019 - 2020) published in the Netherlands in a book by the group, Writers for Justice (Schrijvers voor Gerechtigheid) on climate justice and climate change.
RECENT
Two-person collaborative exhibition .In the End a Devastating Beauty at Stand4 Gallery, Brooklyn, NY. January - February, 2024.
Media
Art Spiel, In the End a Devastating Beauty at Stand4 Gallery, February 8, 2024
Invitational Artist Residency at The Swimming Hole Foundation, Glenford, New York, Oct., 2023.
.April 28 - June 2, 2023.Water Women, three person collaborative.
Media
“Interview With Artist Susan Hoffman Fishman,” Burning Worlds: Climate Change in Art and Literature, a publication of the Chicago Review of Books, March 30, 2023
FLOOD 2.0 at Five Points Gallery, Torrington, CT
Flood 2.0 Video Still, 2023
MAYDAY! EAARTH at Ceres Gallery, NYC, December 13 - 17, 2022.
Media
“An NYC Art Exhibit Shows the Beauty and Blight of Earth’s Climate Today,” National Catholic Reporter, December 22, 2022.
Installation view of “The Earth is Breaking Beautifully” series of four mixed media paintings at Ceres Gallery, NYC
Turning Tides at the Target Gallery in the Torpedo Factory Art Center, Arlington, VA, July 23 - September 11, 2022
Media
“In the Galleries: Looming Impacts of Climate Change Close to Home”, Washington Post, September 1, 2022
Climate Conversations: All We Can Save at the Nurture Nature Center, Easton, PA. April 6 - June 30, 2022.
Media
Art Spiel, Residency at Five Points - Flood 2.0, October 21, 2022
“Conversation with the Nurture Nature Center Arts Director” on WDIY Radio
Art Spiel, Climate Conversations at Easton’s PA Nurture Nature Center, April 6, 2022
Landscapes of Material and Mind at New York Hall of Science, Flushing Meadow -Corona Park, Bronx, New York., February 19 - April 24, 2022. Developed and curated by SciArt initiative.
Installation view of Covid Look-Out 1 and Covid Look-Out 2, photograph, 18” x 18,” 2020
In the Beginning There Was Only Water. Solo Exhibition at Five Point Gallery, Torrington, CT, November 12 - December, 19, 2021
Excerpt from Review in Artists and Climate Change
While some of us taught ourselves to bake sourdough bread or to mend socks during the pandemic, the American painter and arts writer Susan Hoffman Fishman plunged herself into her studio and emerged, a year later, with a revised creation story. The result: a magnificent, nearly 50-foot (15 meters) opus entitled In The Beginning There Was Only Water.
In The Beginning There Was Only Water reframes the biblical creation myth – in which “man” was granted “dominion” over all the Earth’s plants and animals – into a new, non-human-centric story.
Comprised of 39 mixed media paintings on paper, each 30 in. x 15 in., the work is hung without any space between the panels. The extended horizontal format of the piece creates a dramatic running narrative that begins approximately 3.8 billion years ago, when our fiery planet started to cool and the rains began to fall, and fall continuously, for centuries – filling up the basins that eventually became the primeval ocean.
In the beginning, there was only water. Not a human being or apple tree in sight.
Joan Sullivan, Artists and Climate Change, November 22, 2021
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Installation view of In the Beginning There Was Only Water, acrylic, oil pigment stick and mixed media on paper, 30 in. x 50 ft., 2021
The Water Women Collective at the Swimming Hole Foundation Artist Residency, October 2023, L to R: Krisanne Baker, Susan Hoffman Fishman and Leslie Sobel