Suzanne Theodora White
We are feeling great about sharing the works of Suzanne Theodora White. I met Suzanne a couple of years ago when she and I reviewed her portfolio at the New England Portfolio Reviews (NEPR) hosted by the Griffin Museum of Photography and the Photographic Resource Center/Boston. When discussing her works I knew right away that we needed to feature her on Aspect. Suzanne is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice is deeply informed by her early training as a painter and a lifelong engagement with the natural world. Educated at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, and holding an MFA from Maine Media Workshops and College. Her work has been shaped by extensive travels through Europe, Asia, and the Americas—including fieldwork cataloging bird species in the Amazon and Central America. Suzanne’s art has been widely exhibited in solo and group shows at institutions such as Yale University, the Museum of Fine Arts Boston, the De Cordova Museum, The Griffin Museum of Photography and the Photographic Resource Center/Boston.
We are sharing images from three projects.
Dry Stone No Sound of Water, The Weight of Memory, The New American Landscape
The project Dry Stone No Sound of Water is an artistic exploration rooted in the personal landscape of the Suzanne’s Maine farm, inspired by T.S. Eliot’s The Waste Land. Suzanne employs decades’ worth of photographic documentation, manipulated into theatrical compositions that evoke the symbolic richness of 17th-century Vanitas paintings. Through the physical destruction and reconstruction of these images, the work becomes both a personal expression of climate grief and a broader commentary on cultural disconnection from nature. The project is a reflective journey through time—past, present, and imagined future—aiming to reconcile memory, loss, and hope. Ultimately, Suzanne is using this practice as an act of environmental advocacy awareness and a testament to the enduring beauty of the natural world.
The Weight of Memory explores the concept of environmental change through the lens of personal experience and ecological theory, particularly the idea of Shifting Baseline Syndrome. Here again Suzanne constructs and photographs theatrical scenes that serve as emotional and visual records of a changing landscape, shaped by environmental degradation and drought.
The New American Landscape, reflects Suzanne’s lifelong commitment to exploring the relationship between humanity and nature. This project documents ecological transformation but also mourns it, seeking expression and solace in the remains of a injured landscape. The work ultimately stands as a memorial and a visual testimony to nature’s resilience amid human exploitation., dedicated to Honduran forest defenders Juan Silva and his son Juan, reflects Suzanne’s ongoing commitment to exploring the relationship between humanity and nature.
Steven J. Duede, Visual Artist, Aspect Principal
The act of physically crushing and tearing a well-made photograph is a personal and performative existential act and a manifestation of my climate grief. With my work I am time traveling, investigating the past while presenting a potential future.
Dry Stone No Sound of Water
For the project Dry Stone No Sound of Water, I use my farm and the land it embraces, as well as T.S. Eliot’s poem The Waste Land, as a muse. I construct what I think of as a theater by cutting, tearing, twisting, drawing, and arranging photographs I have taken on my farm for over forty years. I am creating imaginary landscapes and still life in the spirit of 17th century Vanitas paintings as I explore issues of life, death, indulgent consumption, and our cultural alienation from the natural world. The act of physically crushing and tearing a well-made photograph is a personal and performative existential act and a manifestation of my climate grief. With my work I am time traveling, investigating the past while presenting a potential future. I am asking the question: can art carry the burden of remembering the past while confronting what the future may hold? From a fixed point on the map, I am a traveler through the Anthropocene as I bear witness to the impact of climate change on my farm. This project allows me to be an advocate for the land, using art not only as a method of communication but a profound acknowledgement of the natural world and my desire to find splendor in what remains.
The Weight of Memory
There is a theory called Shifting Baseline Syndrome. To paraphrase Dr E.J. Milner-Gulland, author of the concept, it is an idea in which over time, because of the short span of a human life, people do not perceive changes that are taking place in nature. Consequently, knowledge is lost about the natural world as each generation adjusts to a new normal with what remains. I build what I see as theaters and photograph them. They are dramas, tragedies, and documentaries. They morph into a hybrid of imagined landscapes and still life, while continuing to be a deeply personal record of changes on my land and the consequences of a 6-year drought. We who have born witness bear the weight of memory. What will happen when there is no one to remember? How will we restore our shared natural world? If we can embrace the knowledge of what used to be, and come to terms with what we know presently, we will understand what can be and find the hope and determination to reclaim our natural world.
The New American Landscape
Dedicated to the memory of Honduran forest defenders Juan Silva and his son Juan There is no place on earth that has not been irrevocably altered or polluted by human activity. My profound connection to nature and our impact on the environment has been an overriding subject in my work throughout my years as an artist. I use my Maine farm and the photographs I have taken over 40 years to show the changes to the land around me. I do this by creating theaters. By tearing, twisting, and drawing, I construct my photographs as I explore issues of climate grief, consumption, destruction, and our fundamental alienation from the natural world. The act of crushing and tearing well-made photographs is a personal, performative, existential act and the resulting final arrangement evokes images of nature subjugated by human exploitation and allows me to find comfort and beauty in what remains.
Suzanne Theodora White
Suzanne Theodora White
Suzanne Theodora White
Trained as a painter, Suzanne studied at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, and completed her MFA at Maine Media Workshops and College. She was a two-time winner of fellowships awarded by the Boston Museum of Fine Arts. After receiving the first of these awards, she spent eighteen months on the road traveling alone, overland, through Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and the Far East. In the 1980’s and 90’s she made extended trips to Central and South America to catalog birds in the Amazon basin and Central America.
Suzanne has had many solo exhibitions and has been included in group shows over her long career, some of which are listed here: Yale University, New Haven, CT; Cove Street Arts, Portland, ME; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The De Cordova Museum, Lincoln, MA; Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI; Art Institute of Boston; Thomas Segal Gallery, Boston, MA; The French Embassy, NY, NY; and Colby College, Waterville, ME.
Suzanne lives in Maine with her two dogs and a large flock of chickens. Visit: Suzanne