Susan Arthur Whitson
Stranded Pony, 2009
Photographic print
9-1/4 x 9-1/4" (framed 20 x 16")

Artist Bio

Susan Arthur Whitson (Washington, DC) takes vivid color photographs using animals and other plastic models as surrogates to access specific emotions. Working primarily outdoors, using available light and conventional camera effects rather than post-exposure manipulation of the image, Arthur Whitson creates these micro-environments intuitively. The images have their unique scope, fusing the real world with Whitson's imagination, creating a new world for us to peer into. They are meditations on seeing but seeing from a primal view. For Whitson, they represent life in a pre-verbal world of raw perception, waiting to be seen, requiring the viewer to decide if they are hiding or not. "Everyone hides at some point and wants to be found."

Whitson is a graduate of Wellesley College and received an MA in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin. Subsequently, she worked closely with a number of prominent photographers and estates for over 12 years in New York as Assistant Director of Photography at the Robert Miller Gallery and Director at Houk Friedman and Edwynn Houk Gallery. Whitson has helped organize photographic seminars, competitions, and exhibitions through her work with PhotoSession, the Center for the Photographic Image, and the University of the Arts. She has taught photography at the School of Visual Arts, New York; University of the Arts, Philadelphia and Drexel University, Philadelphia.