79: Karolina Sussland

79: Karolina Sussland Karolina Sussland is an Arizona-based artist whose family defected to the US from the Czech Republic in 1980. She studied Chemistry and Drawing at ASU and graduated with a BFA in 2000. Among her most recent work is a series of sunset images inspired by Arizona Highways...

By Amy Silverman

June 22, 2010

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79: Karolina Sussland

Karolina Sussland is an Arizona-based artist whose family defected to the US from the Czech Republic in 1980. She studied Chemistry and Drawing at ASU and graduated with a BFA in 2000. Among her most recent work is a series of sunset images inspired by Arizona Highways photographs from the late 1970s. These were magazines sent to her parents as they were planning their defection and inspired them to come to Arizona. Her work was included in "Phoenix: 21st Century City."

List five things on your Inspiration Wall (real or imagined).
1. other artists
2. connections
3. social structures
4. language
5. fiction/reality

What's your last big project?
The Goodness Project, which showed in progress in Scottsdale thanks to a mini-grant from the Ted Decker Catalyst Fund. It's not really finished and might get integrated into a project I'm working on now. I started out trying to find the mathematical formula for goodness and stumbled upon 1+1=2 which seems so simple until you take a closer look and think about how there's a whole branch of math that's dedicated to number theory and the proof of 1+1=2 is super complicated (for me). It was the perfect metaphor for goodness, which also seems simple, but is incredibly complicated.

What's your next big project?
I'm working on two big projects right now, White Sunsets and Ghostton.

The White Sunset paintings look at the utopian dream that represents the west and how the reality doesn't quite match up.

The Ghostton Project is exploring where fiction and reality meet up in an invented ghost town that I've named Watson. I took photos of graffiti around Phoenix and while I was doing an artist residency at Vermont Studio Center I took photos of Johnson, VT with my cell phone and digitally inserted graffiti from Phoenix into Johnson. The images then became the evidence that was found of a town that might have existed, but is now abandoned. Then the backgrounds were removed so that the graffiti could [be more closely examined much like how scientists were able to examine graffiti from ancient Greece - which led them to discovering local literacy rates, slang, and how the language was actually pronounced.

How much do you hate being asked what your next big project is?
I like it. It means someone is interested in what I'm doing.

What's something you want Phoenix to know about you? (And, if you're game, what's something you really don't want Phoenix to know about you?)

What I want Phoenix to know

I have a really hard time recognizing people's faces which is odd especially since I'm good at portraiture.

What I don't want Phoenix to know

Beverly Hills 90210 seasons 4,5 and 6 are in my Netflix queue.

The Creatives, so far:

100. Fausto Fernandez
99. Brian Boner
98. Carol Panaro-Smith
97. Jane Reddin
96. Adam Dumper
95. Mayme Kratz
94. Daniel Tantalean
93. Yuri Artibise
92. Lisa Starry
91. Paul Hoeprich
90. Betsy Schneider
89. Mary Shindell
88: Gabriel Utasi
87: Tiffany Egbert
86. Angela Cazel Jahn
85. Dayvid LeMmon
84. Beatrice Moore
83. Michelle J. Martinez
82. Carrie Bloomston
81. Paul Porter
80. Rachel Bess

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Amy Silverman is the former managing editor of Phoenix New Times. She is a two-time winner of the Arizona Press Club’s Journalist of the Year award. Her work has appeared on the radio show This American Life and in the New York Times, the Washington Post, Lenny Letter, and Brain, Child.