Susan Wides is a photographic, video, and installation artist based in the Hudson Valley, and relies heavily on inspiration drawn from the urban landscape in New York, while the natural settings of the Hudson Valley and Catskills play a pivotal role in her photography.
Susan Wides art featured at the Hudson River Museum, 2024. Photo by Steven Paneccasio.
A Transformative Vision
“I’ve been immersed in nature for as long as I can remember,” artist Susan Wides explains about herself. “I’m intensely invested in a visionary art—a visionary exploration of place, nature, and perception. I seek a transformative vision that expresses intuitive, critical, and conceptual responses to our landscape and social-political environment. My work in process and subject matter is made to facilitate change both internally and externally. I seek to protect and restore ecological balance to our extremely imperiled environment, and to advocate for environmental protection,” states Wides.
Hudson River Clean-Up and Preservation
In 2024, Susan’s work was featured as part of the Rivers Flow / Artists Connect event at the Hudson River Museum. In addition to the exhibit, Susan joined journalist David Gargill and Tracy Brown, President of Riverkeeper, for a panel discussing the EPA’s evaluation of General Electric’s efforts to remediate the Hudson River. For many years, Susan has taken a special interest in the Hudson River and its preservation. Wides explained how, in 2009, Harpers invited her to photograph the story of the PCBs in the Hudson to accompany David Gargill’s investigative report titled “GE Superfraud: Why the Hudson Will Never Run Clean.”
“His reporting revealed that GE’s contamination of the river was far more extensive than previously believed and that the proposed cleanup would prove insufficient,” Wides explains. “I was thrilled to be able to make this advocacy document to support political action. Hudson Falls and Ft. Edward, two factory towns along the Hudson, were each sites of heavy pollution by GE and early cleanup efforts. David and I traversed the river landscape through PCB-laden soil—in boots we later disposed of—to find the right locations for the photographs.”
That same year, Wides would also photograph Indian Point where radioactive contaminants had leaked into the groundwater. Indian Point is significant to the work of cleaning up the Hudson because of the radioactive materials that were leaked into the river and their impact on the local ecosystem. Despite the plant’s closing in 2021, environmentalists and activists still continue to fight for its safe decommissioning.
Voice of Silence
Installation at Private Public Gallery, 2024, courtesy of Susan Wides
Wides spoke of her long kinship with the Hudson. “My latest body of work, “Voice of Silence,” including my first piece of video art, was shot along the tributaries of the Hudson near my home. They’re informed by the same ecological concerns that have fueled my art and social practice for over twenty years. In these images, our most precious life source, water, becomes a site of transformation, renewal, instability, and environmental peril. Much of this work was completed during the pandemic, offering an antidote at a time when we need its power of healing in our world. This remains urgent today.”
It is her connection with the Hudson that has also led her to take a special interest in Yonkers. “I became fascinated by Yonkers contaminated waterfront. The resulting photographs were seductive, yet full of negation. For example, the photographs I took of the eroding banks of the PCB-ridden river by Phelps Dodge highlight the natural landscape surrounding these hazardous sites while also calling attention to the dangers and attempts at containment. The building was later owned by BICC Cables Corp. which shut down operations in 1997. Following the closure, an environmental investigation began.”
Installation View, ‘I, Kaaterskill,’ Hudson River Museum, New York, 2011, courtesy of Susan Wides
As part of her process, photographs are taken on-site at the Kaaterskill and Catskill creeks that flow into the Hudson, where light, water, rocks, and trees meet. She uses a simple digital camera with a single exposure by manipulating the lens’s focal properties so she can see and adjust the imagery. “There’s no compositing in Photoshop afterward—it’s crucial these are made in the field, with an intimate connection to the earth,” Wides explains. “I counter today’s digital dehumanization and environmental loss by exploring an ecology of vision. A fresh perspective can awaken us, encouraging a viewer’s lived experience of feeling, imagination, and spirit, connecting to a deep awareness of being, of what will be lost, inspiring us to protect the environment and facilitate change in our everyday lives.”
‘T’-Space
Exterior photo of ‘T’-Space in Rhinebeck.
Since its founding in 2010, Wides has curated over 35 shows at ‘T’ Space, a non-profit woodland gallery dedicated to the cross-inspiration of art, poetry, architecture, and music in the Hudson Valley. Susan considers her curatorial work with ‘T’ Space to be an important part of her art practice, as her concerns around the arts and nature are deeply aligned with its mission. The ecologically focused organization seeks to inspire cross-pollination of art, architecture, music, and poetry and is located on a 28-acre nature reserve in Rhinebeck.In addition to their gallery programming, they also host a lecture series, guided tours, and a residency program. The space is open year-round for tours and the public can visit the galleries June through October. It also houses one of the largest public architecture archives in the Northeast. You can learn more about T-Space here and follow Susan’s work at SusanWides.com.
