Through Collage, Artist Susan Lerner Creates Surreal Stories
Susan Lerner has been a resident of Litchfield County since 1997 when she and her husband bought a home in New Preston as a weekend retreat from city living. After 18 years of working as a flavor chemist, and an equal amount of time raising her two daughters, she decided to experiment with analog collage. The minute Lerner picked up a straight edge at the 92nd Street Y in NYC, she was hooked. Lerner is drawn to the connection of past and present by using vintage imagery to create a new contemporary style. She shares, “I am intrigued by the use of fragile material in a new context. I like to juxtapose unlikely images to tell unexpected surreal stories, embodying the attitude that anything is possible. I am satisfied when the viewer can’t figure out if it is real or imagined.”
The hunt for the ephemera for her collages is part of the magic of Lerner’s work. She scours used book stores and flea markets for just the right magazines, books, maps, illustrations, and often finds globes, old postcards, and photographs to use in her works. In this collage, Litchfield County, CT, Lerner wanted to recreate the feeling of her favorite place in Litchfield County, Lake Waramaug. “My daughters grew up on the lake and it will always bring nostalgic memories to heart,” she shares. The use of the map’s intrinsic lines, color, and symmetry naturally leads the viewer into the heartbeat of the collage, Lake Waramaug. The found vintage magazine images from the ‘70s, photographed flowers of similar hues, and a vintage lake postcard wondrously bring disparate pieces together to create this dream-like memory that so many of us in Litchfield County share.
