Selections from
Seubert's Panphobia series are showing along with work
by 12 other photographers at S.K.
Josefsberg Studio, 403 NW 11th Ave., 241-9112.
The show ends July 31.
Seubert was one
of 25 Oregon artists selected to show their works at Portland
Art Museum's 1999
Oregon Biennial curated by PAM's Kathryn
Kanjo. The exhibition opens July 31.
Susan Seubert has to cross the street very carefully these
days, because the chances she'll be mowed down are pretty
high. At least according to her they are. "This has been a
banner year for me," says the 28-year-old photographer. "So
I keep wondering when I'm going to be hit by a truck." Seubert
claims her fatalism is the result of having had a heap of
success in a very short time. In the last year alone, she's
racked up a much-talked-about solo show at the Froelick Adelhart
Gallery, garnered a Runner-up Best Cover designation from
the prestigious Alfred Eisenstaedt photography awards and
saw 13 of her pieces purchased by Microsoft. But this streak
of paranoia is hardly surprising coming from an artist whose
subjects range from body-dumping sites to rape to phobias
and who says she became a photographer by accident. You can
forgive her a little superstition and excuse her flights of
neuroticism.
Seubert, an Indiana native, came to Portland right after
high school for the reason that most young people flock
to this far-flung city--she just wanted to get away. "I
chose Portland because it was the farthest place I could
be from Indiana and still be in the 48 contiguous states,"
she says. She knew she wanted to study art. The Pacific
Northwest College of Art gave her some focus, but she was
still floating. "When I was in art school, I was sort of
lost," she says. "I thought photography would be fun, but
I didn't know what I wanted to do with it." Thus began her
accidental pursuit of photography.
After a few years of formal instruction and an internship
at Magnum Press Photos in New York City, Seubert's career
began to take shape. "That internship is how I got started
on this whole New York City thing," says Seubert, referring
to her style. "That is what got me into the macabre work
I do now, my personal work."
New York seduced Seubert, like it does many young artists.
Access to the best work in the world allowed her really
examine what she wanted to do. She knew the journalistic
style she was studying wasn't it. Instead she found herself
drawn to the more edgy, conceptual stuff she saw at the
small galleries and house parties around the city.
Seubert came back to Portland energized and focused. "The
macabre subject matter is who I am, but New York gave me
the vocabulary to translate those ideas to paper," she says.
Although the word macabre might sound extreme, it is the
most fitting way to describe a body of images that center
on the issues of rape, physical abuse, phobias and murder.
When you gaze at Seubert, it is hard to believe that this
healthy young woman could be transfixed by such horrific
deeds. But there's no denying it; her work is dark.
In 1993, at the age of 22, Seubert unleashed her first
series, Every Three Seconds, in a group show at Jamison/Thomas
Gallery. The series was based on the frequency at which
women are raped in this country and consisted of black-and-white,
mural-sized images over which Seubert had typed disturbing
sexual statistics and perversions. "With those text-based
photo murals, Susan threw a lot in peoples' faces," says
Charles Froelick of the Froelick Adelhart Gallery. "But
they were gorgeously produced photographs, so it wasn't
just anger flashing around in a studio. It was thoughtful
and calculated."
As a result of that powerful first show, Seubert gained
local recognition, secured representation by Froelick and
landed a steady gig working with Portland editorial photographer
Robbie McClaran.
Spending the next five years as McClaren's assistant provided
Seubert with a livable income, a Rolodex full of magazine
contacts and hoards of clips. Using her work with McClaren
as a boost up, she was able to get gigs on her own, such
as her Alfred Eisenstaedt-award winning dahlia cover for
Garden Design magazine, Tonya Harding shots for Newsweek,
images of Reed College for Time and Keiko photos
for Entertainment Weekly. You sense a sort of self-satisfaction
about her as she flips through these tear sheets, but it
is clearly Seubert's personal projects that really set her
aflame. "The magazine work is great for creating money,"
she says. "But if I can sell 13 pieces every month, I won't
have to do that kind of work." Each of her pieces is available
for under $1,000, a reasonable figure in the national art
world.
According to Froelick, the Microsoft sale came shortly
after one of the company's curators, Deborah Paine, viewed
Seubert's Panphobia series during one of her
periodic scouting trips to Portland galleries. The series
consists of 27 orchestrated studio shots of everything from
baby dolls to human teeth, each with the corresponding phobia
name scripted underneath. "The idea was that if you decontextualize
the things we fear by giving them all the same weight and
stripping them of their meaning, they become rather silly,"
Seubert says.
Ignited by the success of Panphobia, Seubert then
tackled another concept that she and McClaren dreamed up
after photographing serial killer Keith Jesperson at the
spot where he dumped one of his victims. Apparently the
two joked about putting together a coffee-table edition
of body dump sites in the Columbia River Gorge. "Well, two
years go by, and I am like, 'That's not a bad idea,'" giggles
Seubert.
With the help of Sgt. Gary J. Muncy of the Multnomah County
Sheriff's Office, Seubert visited and later shot 15 dump
sites, creating her Ten Most Popular Places to Dump a
Body in the Columbia River Gorge series, which made
its debut at Froelick Adelhart in October. "Those images
are quite subversive," Froelick says, "because the landscape
draws you in, and then you read the text and discover the
horrible deed that happened there."
Like most of Seubert's work, the Gorge series uses text
to create a dialogue between the artist and her audience.
But Seubert says she is done using text as a medium and
is now attempting image for image's sake. "I am exploring
how imagery can affect you on an emotional level but have
absolutely nothing to do with anything," she says.
To enhance the murkiness of these new works, Seubert produced
them as photogravures, a beautiful, antiquated style of
printing. One image depicts a beat-up Econoline van parked
on a vacant street under a street lamp. "That image sums
up what I am trying to do," says Seubert. "There are clues
to what it could be about, but it is really about nothing.
It is creepy, but you don't know why."
Both Seubert and Froelick admit that the tone of her work
makes it a hard sell. So why is her career gaining such
momentum? "I don't know," says Seubert. "I am amazed that
all of this has happened, because I have no faith. I see
it as a bunch of luck, and I have no idea why it is happening
to me."
Froelick seems to know better. "She's the hardest-working
artist I know," he says. "She's working her Rolodex every
day."
Although it is clear that Seubert's talent and drive are
the real force behind her achievements, there is no doubt
that luck is on her side. She could cross the streets of
Portland blindfolded and surely be left unscathed. But if
she did get blindsided by a Mack truck, it would make a
good photo op for some young gun who happens to have her
camera ready.
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Willamette Week | originally
published June 30, 1999
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