Susan Worsham: Crystals of Silver

Susan Worsham: Crystals of Silver by Aline SmithsonNovember 13, 2024

©Susan Worsham, FINN AT WALL, 2020 Gelatin silver print, 32 x 40 inches framed. Edition of 3.

I have been a looooooong time fan of Susan Worsham and her spectacular photographs. Her work is at once nostalgic and contemporary as she moves her large format camera down the familiar roads of Richmond, Virginia. I was excited to see that she has recently opened a new exhibition at the Candela Gallery, Crystals of Silver that runs through December 21st, 2024. There will be an Artist Talk with Susan Worsham on Thursday, November 21st.

Candela shares: Renowned for her vibrant use of color, Worsham’s upcoming show, Crystals of Silver, draws inspiration from her extensive collection of microscope slides and will feature a limited edition series of rarely seen black-and-white photographs. Worsham stopped printing black-and-white work 25 years ago when Ektalure paper, known for its high silver content, was discontinued. The show’s title comes from the silver halide crystals that make photographic paper sensitive to light—these same crystals are preserved within Worsham’s treasured microscope slides. Worsham muses,

“The microscope slides, like photographs, are meant to capture and preserve. The specimen is affixed to the surface of glass like an image is fixed to the surface of paper. The glass holds both beauty and death at the same time, their labels often reading like small poems –

Human hairs of Man, Woman, and Child
Chirping drum and file of cricket
Butterfly’s tongue.”

In this exhibition, Worsham has returned to gelatin silver printing, preserving memories with a sense of closure. Each image serves as a poetic tribute to lost moments, youth, and the passage of time. While initially focused on exploring her brother’s memory and the loss of family, Worsham’s work has evolved to delve into her relationship with her childhood neighbor, biologist Margaret Daniels, and reflect on her understanding of self and the world. Worsham infuses these inspirations into a multi-sensory experience incorporating video, audio, and sculpture.

Alongside a rare series of black-and-white photographs, a standout piece in the show is a large pink marble perfume bottle shaped like an urn, evoking the scent her mother used to wear. A marble box carved to resemble Kodak paper memorializes the paper that once held our photographs, smiles, and memories. Lastly, a moving still life in the back room preserves scenes Worsham set up in her childhood neighbor’s basement, photographed before the house was emptied and sealed like a tomb.

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©Susan Worksham, Four White Turkeys, a Duck, and Hen, 2020

Susan Worsham (b.1969) is an american photographer from Richmond, Virginia. She often describes her idyllic childhood, peppered with the deaths of her family as being Bittersweet. Her work is both poetic and deeply personal, drawing inspiration in equal parts from the artist’s memories of family, from the Southern landscape, and the intertwined emotions of sorrow and beauty.

“My work is cyclic, a wedding ring of life’s emotions and processes….joining beauty and decay, life and death, disease and healing.

I use the botanical poetry of Camellias, Honeysuckle, Bittersweet, and Persimmon almost as funeral flowers laid out for my family, but also as symbols of regeneration. “

Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States, as well as internationally, and is held in private and public collections including the Ogden Museum of Southern Art, the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, the Chrysler Museum, and the High Museum of Art, Atlanta. She has been an artist-in-residence at Light Work in Syracuse, New York, where her work was published in Contact Sheet 168: Bittersweet/Bloodwork, as well as a recipient of The Franz and Virginia Bader Fund.

Her work is included in A Long Arc: Photography and the American South since 1845 at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts that runs through January 26th, 2025. In addition she has an accompanying exhibition at VMFA, Home/Grown: Photographs by Susan Worsham and Brian Palmer, that runs through April 6, 2025.

Instagram: @susanvirginiaworsham

Instagram: @candelabooksandgallery

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©Susan Worsham, Georgia at Ukrops Grocery, 2018

Worsham.Susan_MiniatureGraceland-DonEpperlysFrontYard-VA_2016

©Susan Worsham, MINIATURE GRACELAND, DON EPPERLY’S FRONT YARD, VIRGINIA, 2016 Gelatin silver print; 20 x 25 inches, 30 x 40 inches framed. Edition of 3.