Overview - Shadow Portraits
The Shadow Portrait series include Conduit Portraits; a limited edition artists’ book Shadowed Memory; Suffragist Portraits for A Yellow Rose Project; and private patron commissions.

Conduit Portraits
20” x 25” archival Pigment Prints

The first shadow portraits Grant created originated as a collection of images made in 2004 for Conduit Gallery’s 20th anniversary collaborative exhibition.

For the exhibition, Conduit’s stable of artists worked within the space of the gallery for one month creating new works. During that time Grant set up a photo studio in the director’s office and invited patrons to sit for portrait sessions. The final portraits were printed and incorporated into a site-specific installation consisting of collaged maps designating the birthplace of each individual portrayed.

The collaborative experience working with patrons marked the beginning of Grant accepting private portrait commissions in her Dallas studio.

For information and to see a selection of images in the series, navigate to “Conduit Portraits” under the Shadow Portrait tab.

Artists’ Book - Shadowed Memory
5” x 7”, Limited Edition of 150

In 2005 a selection of the original portraits, made at Conduit Gallery, became the subject of the limited edition artists’ book, Shadowed Memory.

The book was created and designed in collaboration with graphic designer Randall Hill during a residency at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, New York and printed the following year at Padgett Printing in Dallas, Texas using Kodak NexPress digital technologies.

Shadowed Memory addresses issues of identity, recollection and memory.

The book is bound in Ultra-suede and combines twenty-five anonymous shadow portraits with poetic phrases infused with fictitious thoughts and invented scenarios.

For more information and images navigate to “Shadowed Memory” under the Book Art tab.

A Yellow Rose Project
August 18, 2020, marked the centennial anniversary of the passage of the 19th amendment and launch of a photographic collection titled A Yellow Rose Project.

The project was organized by Meg Griffiths and Frances Jakubeck and includes an on-line component, a traveling exhibition and forthcoming book by Texas press.

For the collection, over one hundred women were invited to make work inspired by “what the women’s suffrage movement meant to them.” The resulting collection is a “photographic collaboration of responses, reflections, and reactions to the 19th Amendment” from artists across the United States.

Suffragist Portraits
20” x 25” archival pigment prints.

The work Grant created for A Yellow Rose project includes five Suffragists Portraits that commemorate the 100th anniversary of Women’s suffrage in the United States.

The portraits are inspired by historic photographs and the life stories of the women suffragists they portray. The collection is intended to honor women from every class, race, ethnicity, - and background who fought tirelessly to ratify the 19th Amendment.

The shadow is used as a metaphor to create a portrait of the individual while anonymously signifying all suffragists and the paths they blazed for the future.

The shadow’s lack of specificity enables us to see ourselves in them while imagining their activism, a perceived experience that takes on a sense of shared reality.

For more information and images navigate to “A Yellow Rose Project” under the Shadow Portraits tab.

Susan kae Grant’s Shadow Portraits have been exhibited in museums and galleries throughout the Unites States and featured in Vogue and Time.

The portraits of Niki and David appeared in TIME magazine and TIME Lightbox with the article "How the Past Shapes Modern Photography" and selected by Deborah Willis, Chair of Photography and Imaging at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. The feature "explores the way modern photographers use themes of memory and history.” (October 2014, p8)

Acquisitions: Contact Conduit Gallery
Exhibitions & Private Commissions: Contact Susan kae Grant

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