Action Figures
2000
Installation at Joseph Nease Gallery
Kansas City, Mo.

“A strangely compelling glimpse into a mind”

"In the midst of this brutal summer heat, visiting Susan White’s contemplative installation at Joseph Nease Gallery feels like escape. Though its title, "Action Figures," evokes the bravado of comic book characters or the high energy of blockbuster movies, White's room of tiny sculptures includes no special effects, no mechanical parts, no physical "action" at all.

Instead, the cool, dimly lit, still and silent gallery space features 600-plus sculptural figures constructed simply of paper, wax and twigs. Each figure has a squarish, dark-brown wax body into which anywhere from three to a dozen twigs have been embedded. The thin twigs act as spindly limbs, upon which the wax bodies balance.

Of varying heights and widths, the figures in ensemble resemble a population of awkward, long legged spiders or primitive crustaceans, frozen in time. Some gather, leaning against one another as if plotting or gossiping, while others line up squarely, as marching soldiers, or single-file, like school-children. A few stand apart like dunces confined to their corners.

The key to White's installation lies in the white scraps of paper affixed to each wax body....the fragments include White's sketches, "to do" lists, phone numbers and notes to herself. Supporting the text on their backs, the spiderlike figures thus function essentially as carriers of information – a means of giving physical presence to White's ideas and thoughts. Taken as a whole, the vast community serves as a visual metaphor for the churning of the artist's mind: Ideas are hatched, grow, weave through others in complex patterns, become central or linger quietly, nearly forgotten.

Getting down on one's knees in the gallery to read the texts affords voyeuristic pleasure and teases by offering only fragments...Carefully written and strangely compelling, her notes reflect the commingling of diverse concerns...the bits and pieces emphasize the endless tug of responsibilities that force her to make lists in the first place..."

Excerpt from review in the Kansas City Star By Kate Hackman July 14, 2000