Sensory Synapses
Ceramic, glaze, 22k gold lustre
29x19x15 inches
Announcing Falling Awake, an upcoming solo exhibition this summer at the Ferry Building Gallery in West Vancouver, BC.
Reception and Artist Talk dates and details forthcoming.
August 16 to September 4, 2022
Back to School 2020
Ceramic, glaze, 22k gold lustre
Back to School and Lover’s Eye appear in this exhibition Fertile Ground with Modern Eden Gallery…a special presentation at the 56th Conference of the National Council on Education for the Ceramic Arts (NCECA) in Sacramento, CA. Our booth will feature new works by Susannah Montague, Crystal Morey, Calvin Ma, and Erika Sanada.
On View: March 16-19, 2022
Register here to attend
Modern Eden Gallery
1100 Sutter Street, San Francisco
Lovers Eye
Ceramic, glaze, mother of pearl lutre, 22k gold lustre and decals
23x15x8 inches
Lover’s Eye appeared in the group exhibition Lore: Myth, Magic, and the Macabre at the Modern Eden Gallery.
Modern Eden Gallery
1100 Sutter Street, San Francisco
October 9–30, 2021
We are pleased to present our latest group exhibition, Lore at the gallery. Lore features works inspired by myth, magic, and the macabre. Each artwork, reflecting on the tenets of Dark Romanticism, reveal the artistic fascination with the irrational and the otherworldly. This exhibition features over 50 hand-selected artists from the Bay Area and beyond.
“NEW WORK ALERT! Oh my word, Canadian artist Susannah Montague has done it again. She just sent me a peek at her latest work, “Back to School, 2020” … do you think these twins look ready? Here are a few snippets Susannah shared with me about this work”
See more here and subscribe to Danielle’s wonderful newsletter here.
Saint Corona
Ceramic, glaze, 22k gold lustre and vintage decals, 30x16x14 inches
St. Corona is included in The Ceramics Congress Canada Exhibition…
Okay so i really didn’t mean to drop off over the past few weeks, my apologies! But I promise I had a really good reason – I’ve been working behind the scenes on The Ceramics Congress which starts tomorrow! The event goes for 5 days, is jam-packed full of workshops from international artists, talks, fun challenges, artists markets, film fest and a HUGE online exhibition of 88 artists. I literally can’t name it all there is so much.
So I really hope you’ll join us this weekend. We already have over 5000 attendees signed up from around the world!
- Curator Carol Epp
May 27 to December 21, 2021
10 page spread in dpi Magazine Taiwan.
See the complete article PDF here.
Covid Kiss
Ceramic, glaze, gold lustre
30x13x11 inches
Brand new work in the latest issue 31 of Beautiful Bizarre Magazine.
Beautiful Bizarre Magazine is an informative, insightful and inspiring contemporary art magazine that has captured the hearts and minds of an engaged audience of artists, enthusiasts, collectors and galleries locally in Australia and around the world.
Saint Corona
Ceramic, glaze, 22k gold lustre and vintage decals
30x16x14 inches
Saint Corona appeared in the group exhibition, curated by Beautiful Bizarre Magazine, Midnight Garden in the Modern Eden Gallery.
Modern Eden Gallery
1100 Sutter Street, San Francisco
October 24–November 13, 2020
Modern Eden Gallery proudly presents Midnight Garden, our fourth major group exhibition curated by Beautiful Bizarre Magazine. Over 90 artists from across the globe including the winners of the 2020 Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize have been invited to create an original work considering the themes of nighttime, growth, darkness, and lush flora.
The Golden Fleece
Ceramic, glaze, 22k gold luster
23 x 13 x 14 inches
Honoured to be among the top 3 artists!
Yasha Young Projects Sculpture Award Winners 2020
3rd Place - Beautiful Bizarre Art Prize
Susannah Montague’s highly symbolic and eerily beautiful sculptures at once draw you in, and repel you. In each the surreal porcelain works, there is a narrative to be discovered. Using a combination of hand building, press molds, and slip casting to build her sculptures, she also references traditions from ceramic fine-craft and art history. Montague uses symbols such as fading flowers, bubbles, skulls, and insects to represent death and the transient nature of life. These symbols, interspersed with casts of toys including dolls, helicopters, and bunnies, take on a slightly sinister feeling in their modern compositions. Montague’s work examines the cycles in our lives and asks us to revel in the beauty of the absurd. Susannah Montague is a British born ceramic sculptor, based on Bowen Island, BC. She received her BFA from Emily Carr University and OCAD University.
On a B.C. island, repetition helps this sculptor deal with her COVID-19 anxiety
Lise Hosein · CBC News · April 1, 2020
(CBC Arts)
In our self-shot video series COVID Residencies, we're checking out how artists are adapting their practices in isolation, whether it's diving into different processes or getting lost in their sketchbooks.
A while back, we brought you the story of ceramic sculptor Susannah Montague. On Bowen Island, B.C., Montague usually makes ornate (and sometimes dark) works, letting barnacles fasten to them when she submerges them in the sea.
Now, though, working in her usual way feels a bit overwhelming as she thinks about the resources available on her island and what to do if her family requires medical assistance. It's an anxiety-inducing series of ruminations, so Montague has shifted her art practice to help her cope with the realities of life during social isolation.
My work is featured with Danielle Krysa, AKA "The Jealous Curator", in her new amazing book A Big Important Artist: A Womanual. I am honoured to be a part of it.
The Masked Madonna (detail)
Ceramic, Glaze, Gold, Mother of Pearl Lustre and Wood
29 x 16 x 12 inches
Very happy to announce I am now a “Full Member” with the Sculptors’ Society of British Columbia. Looking forward to collaborating and exhibiting with this stellar group of artists.
Crown of Swans
Ceramic, glaze, pearl lustre and 22k gold
34.5 x 19 x 10 inches
Thanks to Portia Priegert and Galleries West for this lovely article.
Ceramic artist Susannah Montague whips up sugary confections with elaborate toppings of curlicues and cherubs, flowers and frou-frous, swans and seashells, plus all other manner of other precious whimsies. Decorative, excessive and absolutely delightful, her sculptures are both visual marvels and stellar displays of technical virtuosity. But their appeal is also linked, in part, to her exploration of darker themes from childhood stories and nightmares.
G’ddy Up!
Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art
Saturday, July 6 – Saturday, August 24, 2019
Media Release:
Newzones is pleased to announce the return of “G’ddy Up!”, an annual rotating group exhibition that coincides with the Calgary Stampede.
“G’ddy Up!” will survey how Newzones’ artists explore contemporary cowboy culture, and how they implement aspects of this culture in formal practices through painting, photography, mixed media and sculpture.
While “G’ddy Up!” is sure to please those looking for some good ol’ western iconography, it will also demonstrate that the ‘Wild West’ has changed – and has much more to offer these days than just the iconic cowboy.
“G’ddy Up!” will exhibit artworks by artists who diffuse the image of the ‘Wild West’ in a ‘West’ that is elegant, cosmopolitan and vibrant; a ‘West’ where contemporary artists live and work, while creating world class art.
The Calgary Stampede brings the city to life with pulsating cowboy culture, both new and old, and Newzones is no exception!
Artists included: Dianne Bos, Sophie DeFrancesca, Casey McGlynn, Susannah Montague, Don Pollack, David Robinson, Kevin Sonmor and Samantha Walrod
Exhibition runs from Saturday, July 6 – Saturday, August 24, 2019
Where Women Create - this beautiful publication - honoured to be a part of it.
Thanks to editor Trivia Bridges and Lillie Louise for the beautiful photographs.
See the whole article PDF at this link: Issue 6, 2019
Whether it’s art, music, written works, or choreographed dances, extraordinary women know that the process of creating is as important as what ultimately gets created. That is why extraordinary women pay attention to the details of their work spaces… making sure that they surround themselves with visually stimulating inspiration and unique organizational systems. WHERE WOMEN CREATE invites you into the creative spaces of the most extraordinary women of our time. Through stunning photography and inspirational stories, each issue of this bi-monthly magazine will nourish souls and motivate creative processes.
- Where Women Create
Lucid Dreams
Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art
March 17 - April 27, 2019
Media Release:
Newzones is pleased to present “Lucid Dreams”, a solo exhibition by leading Canadian female sculptor, Susannah Montague.
Susannah Montague’s ceramic figurative sculptures are finely detailed, hugely intricate, and loaded with religious and mythological imagery. Montague draws her inspiration from mysticism and esotericism, touching on daydreams and the fantastical elements that haunt our nights. Within the eerie beauty of these ceramic sculptures is an exploration of the intersection between dreams and reality, while at the same time, fusing innocence and corruption in the flowers, dolls, lizards, toys and skulls that fervidly explode in these contemporary baroque compositions, asking us to revel in the beauty of the absurd.
Montague is based on Bowen Island, BC. She received her BFA from Emily Carr University and OCAD University.
Montague’s sculptures can be found in private collections all over the world. Her work was the subject of a CBC Arts Documentary in August 2018.
I’m very excited to announce Beautiful Bizarre Magazine included my work in their Top 100 Sculptors of 2018 on Instagram
“a list of artists who work in a wide variety of mediums from found object assemblage, glass, textiles, wood, marble, sculpey, metal, wax, string, bones, feathers, fibreglass, sugar, resin, metal, clay, taxidermy, paper, textiles, fine porcelain etc., and whose works range in scale from miniature to larger than life or room size! All of whom I believe are among the greatest living and working sculptors of 2018."
Co-founder + Editor-in-Chief Danijela Krha Purssey
Announcing new representation in Calgary at Newzones Gallery of Contemporary Art “…one of North America’s leading contemporary art galleries representing prominent Albertan, Canadian and international artists. The gallery’s program has an emphasis on process oriented artwork that challenges both the traditional use of materials and formal aesthetics."
Looking forward to working with co-directors Helen and Tamar Zenith, ass’t director Sabrina Sullivan and preparator Brandon Hearty.
Watch for my first exhibition at Newzones in December.
Milena Salazar · CBC News · August 22
(CBC Arts)
When Bowen Island, B.C.-based artist Susannah Montague was growing up, her family would travel to Scotland to visit relatives who owned an antique shop. She would spend those summers studying vintage objects like Dresden dolls and blue and white porcelain in the shop — an experience that now deeply informs her intricate ceramic work.
Using these traditional methods but with a contemporary twist, her pieces combine natural and fantastical elements to conjure a whimsical world of cherubs, dolls, butterflies, skulls and animals. "I think my style is influenced by my childhood and watching my children grow up," she says. "It's full of the daydreams that we have as children, and the nightmares of a childhood, captured in the scary and the beauty of these pieces."
On Bowen Island, artist Susannah Montague explains why she's been giving her sculptures to the ocean.
For her latest project, Montague is stepping out of her studio and collaborating with the ocean. She's submerging new ceramic pieces in crab traps in the intertidal zone, allowing barnacles to grow on them. Barnacles are small crustaceans that build a "house" around them made of calcium carbonate — which happens to be the most common source of calcium in ceramic glazes. "I was sculpting barnacles in porcelain and I thought, 'Why not let nature do its thing?' I love the thrill of working so hard of making a piece and just surrendering it and leaving it in the ocean for months. It's sort of like opening the kiln. You hold your breath and open it up."
(CBC Arts)
In this video, Susannah Montague talks about the process of letting outside forces step in to her work, and how it's allowed her to let go of her perfectionism and let nature use its own creative power.
You can follow Susannah Montague and her adventures with the ocean here.
(CBC Arts)
(CBC Arts)
