Suzette Bross

(b.1968; resides Chicago, IL)

Red & Landscape, 2007

Sky Blue, 2007

In 2003 Suzette Bross introduced the first images in her series Commutes, digital photographs taken from the window of her car as she drove down the highway. The project portrays the commuter’s landscape, surrounding stretches of highway, but as perceived in a state of motion. Bross eschewed clarity and purposeful composition in her photographs in an effort to convey the effect of movement and a feeling of suspension. Recently, Bross completed an extension of the project, entitled Commute: Trucks, which is represented here. These photographs present a new direction: instead of focusing on the photographer’s state of motion in relation to a static landscape, they now draw equally on movement around her, specifically large trucks speeding by. The landscape and the blurred vehicles effectively merge here, transfigured into bands of color, and a number of the images approach abstraction.

Bross earned an MA from the Institute of Design, Illinois Institute of Technology (1999). She has exhibited in Chicago at Martha Schneider Gallery, Northwestern University Memorial Hospital, and University Club of Chicago; and elsewhere at venues such as the Museum of Contemporary Art, Fort Collins, Colorado; University of Michigan Duderstadt Gallery, Ann Arbor, Michigan; and the Groton School Gallery, Groton, Massachusetts. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Art Institute of Chicago; the Block Museum of Art, Evanston, Illinois; and the Comer Archive at the University of Illinois, Chicago. Bross currently teaches at Columbia College Chicago.

http://www.suzettebross.com

Past Portfolios

Commute #11 (truck)

Commute #15 (Amoco)

Commute #1 (rollercoaster)

We live in an age of accelerated transition. These images are of the “in between” places. - Suzette Bross

Blurred but nonetheless identifiable, Suzette Bross’ digital inkjet prints of the rural and suburban landscape mark the pace of modern life. Shot through the glass of a car window, these photographs capture not simply the sensation of traveling, but of experiencing the world only in passing. Only the arresting orange of a plastic fence or the bright pink of a roller coaster in an otherwise muted palette catch the eye long enough to record these scenes we so often fail to notice.

Electric Toothbrush, 2003

Hand Dryer, 2003