Susan Hensel
Burnsville, MN
Creating an experience that overwhelms with color, transcends the quotidian and encourages one to step outside the ego into a place of pure sensation
Message
Biography
Susan Hensel (b. 1950, Ithaca, NY) is a multidisciplinary artist whose sculptural textile work merges digital and manual embroidery techniques with mixed-media practices. Her work investigates the interplay between light and material structure, with a particular focus on the optical properties of triangular embroidery thread. Conceptually, Hensel’s practice engages with the emotional and ecological dimensions of climate change, creating contemplative spaces that invite reflection and the imagining of restorative futures.
Hensel holds a BFA from the University of Michigan (1972). The artist participated in over 360 exhibitions, including more than 50 solo shows. In addition to her exhibitions across the United States, her work was exhibited in Mexico, Germany, Korea, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan. Susan’s work was recognized with over 20 awards and supported by grants from the Jerome Foundation, the Minnesota State Arts Board, and Art to Change the World. She attended residencies at the Ragdale Foundation and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts.
Her scheduled exhibitions in 2025 include solo presentations in Bemidji, MN, and Ames, IA, as well as group exhibitions in Ukraine, with the Textile Study Group of New York, and Artburst.com.
Hensel’s work is held in over 30 public collections, including the Museum of Modern Art (NY), the Getty Research Institute, and the Garrett Museum of Art. Her artist book archives are housed at the University of Washington Libraries in Seattle. She lives and works in Burnsville, Minnesota.
Statement
Radical Beauty and Optical Structure: Innovations in Textile Form
I create innovative sculptural textile works that merge digital embroidery with mixed-media construction to investigate the physics of light, color, and perception. My practice transforms industrial embroidery—typically used for uniforms and novelty goods—into a medium of visual complexity and contemplative depth. The embroidery may be flat or sculptural, pictorial or abstract; it can stand alone or combine with other media to create a colorful, challenging visual experience.
The innovation in these mixed-media textiles lies in material manipulation. Using trilobal polyester embroidery thread, I construct rigid, three-dimensional forms from soft components. These threads scatter light variably due to their triangular cross-section. By embedding permanent folds and wrinkles, I intensify the scatter to produce shifting chromatic effects. A single shape, rendered in a single thread color, can appear to hold a broader palette—depending on lighting, viewer angle, and movement. No motors, no projections—just light, form, and the active gaze of the viewer.
This visual instability is more than technical fascination—it is a tool for emotional and perceptual disruption. Viewers often pause, slightly confused and intrigued, trying to decipher what they’re seeing. This pause is crucial. It is a space for slowing down, for wonder, and for reflection.
Inspired by the writing of John O’Donahue and others on beauty, I situate this work within what I call a theory of radical beauty. O’Donahue wrote, “Even amidst chaos and disorder, something in the human mind continues to seek beauty.” In an era defined by climate crisis, political division, and cultural fatigue, I believe that beauty, true, disarming beauty, can still act as a catalyst—not in the decorative sense, but as an aesthetic encounter that invites presence, openness, and empathy. My artworks function as a quiet counterpoint to chaos, offering moments of stillness and sensory richness that can remind us of what is possible.
This is not passive art. It is a proposition: that through awe and attentiveness, we can reawaken care for the world, for each other, and for the fragile systems that connect us all.