Essay by Sanda Miller for catalogue to accompany
Susie's 2010 solo show 'inner lives : unguarded moments'

It would be tempting to incorporate all the separate stories which constitute Susie Mendelsson's oeuvre into a meta narrative that conveys an existential message about the human condition. Her training as a graphic artist enables her to employ the tools of the trade to dramatic effect by adopting the film maker's storyboard as the preferred method for her narratives. But in fact the distinguished pedigree of narrative painting transcends modern film making techniques. It can be traced back centuries ago to the way religion used the power of visual images to spread the word of the bible — whose success is proof of its efficiency as propaganda tool. Mendelsson's work belongs to this venerable tradition.

Her choice of subject matter is the stuff our existence is made of — family, friends, lovers, husbands, children — in a word the everyday. Each of the individual stories in turn consists of a variable number of images ranging between a modest six (Home Life) to over a hundred (Women's Work). The titles suggest a chronology starting with childhood (Little Little Girl) through to motherhood (Women's Work: Mother), family life (Home Life) and finally to the inevitable end, but at this point death is introduced by stealth rather than in an overt manner. Thus we are offered a sort of roman fleuve ¹, but in this case restricted to one generation, told in instalments. The difference however is that by breaking loose from the spatio-temporal requirements used both in literature as well as traditional visual narratives, Mendelsson's individual images are made to behave differently.

The series Little Little Girl consists of twenty-nine mono prints. Their visual template is simple enough: the dramatis personae, which are placed against a neutral background (in some instances accompanied by captions), engage with each other through body language and gestures. Each image consists of one, two or three characters (with the exception of three larger group compositions). The dominant autobiographical theme is that of a frightening grown-up world filled with frightening grown-ups seen from a child's perspective — a worm's eye view. We see a terrified child's fear made manifest by its unequivocal body language.

"When I was a little girl, I felt small and insignificant. I was a very little little girl. As I grew up and took on new roles like wife, mother and woman, this little little girl stayed with me and I found myself either battling or embracing her." ²

A sort of dénouement is provided by the last image in the series where the little girl, seen seated and looking upwards, is holding a doll or perhaps a baby; we are not sure. Nightmarish mask-like faces surround her like a claustrophobic wall. For the little girl there seems to be no escape; she is trapped, but only seemingly trapped.

"Yet I want to have power and be in control of my life, so I try to free myself of this smallness and the restrictions of what is expected of me. So I paint." ³

The powerfully charged images in the narrative place Susie Mendelsson within the Medieval expressionist tradition of Northern European painting. This tradition can be traced back to the iconic Isenheim Altarpiece painted by Matthias Grünewald (1470 - 1528) in 1515. It also informs the seventeenth century, especially Spanish religious polychrome sculpture.

Without doubt this also explains her admiration for Brazilian born artist Ana Maria Pacheco whose work includes similarly eclectic sources of inspiration. In Pacheco's work explicit influences such as the art of Hieronymus Bosch, Matthias Grünewald, Max Beckmann and Spanish polychrome sculpture — especially the passos carried to this day in religious processions — are as prevalent as imagery drawn from Brazilian sources. ⁴

In one instance, the spectral heads in Mendelsson's last composition of the series Little Little Girl are strongly reminiscent of Pacheco's larger than life polychrome wooden sculptures which testify to her undisputed mastery of a very special aesthetic category: the uncanny.

Sigmund Freud proposed this aesthetic category to designate the ordinary rendered frightening: unheimlich. "The uncanny is that class of the frightening which leads back to what is known of old and long familiar" ⁵ Like with Pacheco, the uncanny creates the uneasy mood that informs Mendelsson's work.

But here all similarities end for Pacheco — a woman — regards herself an artist who happens to be a woman; her choice of subject matter as well as her sources of inspiration are aligned to mainstream art historical modernism. Mendelsson meanwhile acknowledges her femininity by choosing topics that belong to a woman's world. Nowhere is this clearer than in the series entitled Women's Work: Mother which consists of over twenty profoundly disturbing images.

"In common with many women, despite the joys of motherhood and being married, I have often felt frustrated, pulled apart by conflicting responsibilities, sucked dry by contradictory demands, and oppressed by a sense of duty and convention." ⁶

Although in this instance they are accompanied by titles such as Empty Vessel and Motherhood, their uncanniness renders them frightening. No loving coupling for procreative purposes here; instead we may even be witnessing rape or something akin to it (Enough) or some other unspeakable act (Protect and Survive). In the latter, a mother crouching on all fours clutches her infant while a man placed at her rear appears to do unspeakable acts to her.

A question that may well spring to the minds of the warrior women of our times would be the apparent lack of engagement of these submissive women which is hard to reconcile with the militancy we have become accustomed to by Feminist ideologies. Indeed we do not have it here, at least prima facie. The resistance - if there is any to be had — is implicit from within, to do with the 'inner life' postulated in the title of the exhibition and this is spelt out forcefully in the series of portraits entitled She.

It consists of thirty-five female portraits whose individual titles in some instances are just proper names: Cathy, Rosa, Mandy which we may speculate belong to the gallery of people in the artist's life. In some other instances additional words act almost like props, e.g. Closed Eyes, Chiffon Scarf and Lilac Blouse. It may well be that here we deal with a likeness but also this can be a generic representation although the specific details of the attire suggest otherwise. The portraits are mostly drawings but there are exceptions such as in the case of Dodo which is a collage as well as some mono prints.

Unlike with the series Women's Work: Mother, where the dramatic effect is emphasized by the graphic artist's black and white technique, here a more painterly effect is obtained through strong colours. She is Called Rivka, for example, represents a young woman dressed in black viewed from a three-quarter angle with fixed staring eyes. The young woman's gaze is directed upward, the black of the pupils contrasted with the white of the eyeballs; the reddish face and blood-red background creating an overall uncanny feel. But Mendelsson leaves it to us to work out the emotions, which are not of the comfortable kind.

"The She project explores different aspects of myself as portraits of imagined women. Each face expresses a different facet of myself — a typical woman. Each day it's as if I have a different model in my studio." 7

Finally closure: death is brought into the meta narrative with the poignant series entitled In Honour of My Father which consists of seven large images and eighteen smaller studies.

"Following the death of my father in January 2000, I wanted to explore the complexities of his personality. I felt permitted to voice my perception of his unfulfilled desires. In this way I gained some control and let the memories of my father rest in peace, as in his life he was a source of mystery." 8

These images represent crowds of spectral human beings and it seems somehow irrelevant what exactly is happening, were it not for the titles. He Died in Europe, which may well be autobiographical, is a particularly haunting image representing a gathering of black human silhouettes profiled against a yellow background, perhaps suggestive of fire, surrounding a seated human being: a grey silhouette, head unnaturally tilted face-upward, perpendicular on the emaciated body. A dead man? a spectre? death itself? or perhaps a visual interpretation of an abstract concept: the ultimate human sacrifice which is death; whatever it is, it suffices.

There is no relief to be had in Susie Mendelsson's oeuvre, but it is precisely the severe integrity that informs her work which allows for no possible alternatives: it could not possibly be otherwise. But if she may decide in the future to select a different dimension of what we like to call our 'inner lives' then an equally thorough but different kind of dialogue may well emerge.

"At the moment I find myself in a new place, free of many of the old expectations. But I am also adrift, in limbo, in search of new roles and identity as a mature woman artist." 9

Sanda Miller, London 2010

¹ A continuous sequence of novels through which are traced the fortunes of the same character, or group of characters; literally a river novel, e.g. Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time (12 novels, 1951 - 75). See: www.answers.com/topic/novel (last visited 3/4/2010).
^{2, 3} Interview with Susie Mendelsson, 4th April, 2010
⁴ Ana Maria Pacheco: Dark night of the soul (Photographs by John Hedgecoe, Text by Sanda Miller), Lund Humphries, 2001, p.10
⁵ Sigmund Freud: 'The Uncanny' in: Sigmund Freud Art and Literature (volume 14). Penguin Books, 1985, p.340
^{6, 7, 8, 9} Interview with Susie Mendelsson, 4th April, 2010

Dr. Sanda Miller is an art historian, writer and art critic (member of the International Association of Art Critics – AICA). Her latest book entitled Constantin Brancusi was published by Reaktion Books in the series 'Critical Lives' in March 2010.