Susan Grabel: "Lost My Husband/Can’t Lose My Country"

Ceres Gallery is pleased to present new work by Susan Grabel in a solo exhibition titled "Lost My Husband/Can’t Lose My Country" that presents new cast-paper sculptures within a mixed-media installation.

Following the death of her husband of fifty-four years, George Rappaport, in May 2024, the artist’s work has undergone a profound transformation. The cast paper and molded cardboard portraits first shown in her exhibition Reflections have evolved into meditations on loss and grief. Faces hide, fragment, protrude, or recede, reflecting the disorientation and instability inherent in mourning. This personal reckoning is intertwined with the artist’s anger and anguish over what she sees as the ongoing assault on the nation—its institutions and its Constitution—by the current administration. Using Photoshop collages, flyers, and images drawn from public resistance and protest, she constructs visual backdrops that mirror a broader collective unrest. These layered environments situate private loss within a larger landscape of national fracture, where individual grief and public disquiet converge. Susan Grabel grew up in Brooklyn, NY and is currently based on Staten Island. Grabel completed her studies at Brooklyn College and the Brooklyn Museum Art School in 1963 and 1964. Her debut solo show occurred in 1969 at Pace College Gallery in New York City. Since the 1970s, Susan has been very involved with fusing both feminist and social issues into her sculpted forms. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s the artist was active in the figurative co-op gallery movement that took place in Soho. She has exhibited her work at galleries and museums across the country and currently shows at Ceres Gallery. Her work is included in many museum and private collections. For more information please contact: Stefany Benson, Director Ceres Gallery art@ceresgallery.org

What to expect:
Sculpture, Mixed media, Prints, Installation