| My work is influenced by generations of naturalists and their practice. Like those before me, I too have developed my own unique practice, using nature and the natural world as both material and subject. As an artist working in collaboration with the environment, I have ideas that are often manifest as 3D sculptural compositions of collected, abundant, excessive, or exhausted materials found in the environment, which are transformed into evocative and compelling installations. By taking elements of our environment from the abstract to the personal and making them part of our daily, cognitive experience, the installations alert us to, and transform the status-quo of humanity’s current relationship with nature. | 
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Susan Benarcik
Susan Benarcik, Loosing Touch. Courtesy of the artist.
My work is influenced by generations of naturalists and their practice. Like those before me, I too have developed my own unique practice, using nature and the natural world as both material and subject. As an artist working in collaboration with the environment, I have ideas that are often manifest as 3D sculptural compositions of collected, abundant, excessive, or exhausted materials found in the environment, which are transformed into evocative and compelling installations.
By taking elements of our environment from the abstract to the personal and making them part of our daily, cognitive experience, the installations alert us to, and transform the status-quo of humanity’s current relationship with nature. When gathered, manipulated and re-contextualized, materials that are cast aside by nature and society—commercial goods such as wood spools, wire, book page, cardboard, and string; and natural materials such as leaves, branches, and roots; and remedial plants, or saplings—become hybrid situations of a curious nature.
In the face of adversity, artists, designers, and scientists alike stand at the forefront of our capabilities. My work collaboratively redefines our role as stewards to the environment, and reflects upon nature’s tenacious and intuitive behavior. These hybrid situations compel us to recapture a mutually beneficial understanding of nature, an understanding desperately needed in order to adapt in times of rapidly changing climates.
The purpose of my sculptural installations is to make art that extends beyond the notion of “art in the environment.” By placing viewers in a space where the boundaries between disciplines become tenuous, audiences are compelled to examine preconceived notions about art, art materials, and material aspects of our very own human consumption, and its impact on the environment.
