Sue de Beer (born September 8, 1973)[1] is a contemporary artist who lives and works in New York City.[2] De Beer's work is located at the intersection of film, installation, sculpture, and photography, and she is primarily known for her large-scale film-installations.[2]
De Beer was raised in New England, and lives in New York City. She cites the aesthetic of 1700 and 1900 New England as an early influence on her work:
Growing up in a rambling Victorian house with a widow's walk in Salem, Mass., which still exudes an air of its witchy past, she felt that mysticism was a kind of birthright, and it has been a more prominent element of her work in recent years. Ms. de Beer has also borrowed from the dark, violent post-religious mysticism of the novelist Dennis Cooper. (From his novel "Period," used in a 2005 de Beer video: "I could open the other dimension right now if I wanted. Or I could stay here with you. I'm kind of like a god.") [3]
Time itself is the most often repeated subject of de Beer's work, emerging from images and ideas related to the passage of time. Ghosts, haunting, adolescence, trace memory and erasure find a common ground within this theme.
Ms. de Beer said that her fascination with ghosts is in one sense simply about finding a way to explore how we all must deal with the past and with loss as we grow older, a struggle that finds a metaphor in the artistic process itself.[3]
De Beer lived in Berlin, Germany between 2002-2008. She produced and shot three films in Berlin: 'Hans & Grete' (2003), 'Black Sun' (2005), and 'the Quickening' (2006).
