About Me

Painting is a unique fictive arena in which potentially anything can occur in an indeterminate, shifting space between abstraction and representation, analogue and digital referents.  Serving as emblems of the current conflicted ecological awareness we embody as a culture, these works present a collision of disparate configurations, and iterated trajectories. Collaged spaces in these paintings weave together elements and systems of biological form, fragments of detritus, traces of product packaging material, and a range of digital artifacts, while collapsing, dissolving, and questioning their boundaries. This series provokes thought about cultural attitudes and perceptions of our place in nature, an imperative concern in the era of climate change.

Currently a Professor Emerita at the University of Iowa, Sue Hettmansperger received B.F.A. and M.A. degrees from the University of New Mexico and attended the Yale University Summer School in Art in 1971. Throughout a 41 year career at the University of Iowa, she taught all levels of instruction, from Undergraduates to Graduate MFA students in Painting and Drawing, and served for three years as the Head of the Painting Area. She was the recipient of a 2008 John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship in Painting, and recently had a one person exhibition at List Gallery, Swarthmore College, PA. Her exhibitions include one-person shows in 2014, 2011, 2007, 2003, 1999, 1994, and 1990 at A.I.R. Gallery New York City, where she has been an affiliate member since 1989. A.I.R. is the oldest and most respected women’s co-operative gallery in the nation. Selected group venues have included the Hal Bromm Gallery in New York 2015, the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago 2012, the Cedar Rapids Museum of Art 2015, 2012 & 2006, the Figge Museum of Art 2014 & 2010, Bowling Green State University 2005, Northern Arizona University 2005, Grinnell College 2003, University of Texas, San Antonio 2002, Des Moines Art Center 1996, Hyde Park Art Center Chicago 1992, and the Evanston Art Center 1986. Her work appears in the book New American Paintings Midwest, 2010 & 2005. She received a 2009 Iowa Arts Council Major Grant, six UI Arts and Humanities Initiative Grants (2014, 2013, 2011, 2009, 2006, 2001), the Faculty Scholar Award from The University of Iowa (three-year developmental fellowship 1997-99), a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship in Drawing (1983); as well as residency fellowships at the Corporation of Yaddo (2012), Ucross Foundation (1992), Roswell Museum Artist in Residence Program (1990 and 1975), and the MacDowell Colony (1977). Selected Collections include the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, the Des Moines Art Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, NYC, and Swarthmore College.