Susan Hacker Stang

Artist Statement

In January of 2026, I began work on a series of photographs, "Light Forms". This new imagery is quite different from other recent work of mine, for example my recent series on American diners. The idea for "Light Forms" had come to me late in 2025, when I became aware that the Metropolitan Museum was mounting a retrospective of Man Ray. Although I had not yet seen the show but being very familiar with his work, an idea appeared. Since winter was making it more difficult to work outside, why not follow in Man Ray's footsteps and work directly with light? Why not use the striped light that came in through my window blinds, along with a small number of household objects, to create a new series of work? Such limitations have always appealed to me.

Unlike Man Ray, I did use a camera. Yet, light remains at the center of this work. Thought throughout history, and in particular by the Spiritualists, to be the glowing energy of the universe, a message sent to the soul to explain the meaning of life, and even today, mysteriously capable of being both a wave and a particle, light sometimes captivates, sometimes soothes, sometimes frightens, but it is always always central. It enthralls me.

I would like to think that the viewer of these photographs will experience them as more than a formal study of light and shadow or variations on a theme. I would hope instead that these images give the viewer a glimpse of what for me was a profound conversation with light.