Odd Jobs revisited

The second installation of a collaborative series with Brandt Eisner was on view for Photopolis, the biannual, city-wide celebration of photography in Halifax, Nova Scotia (the largest of its kind on the Canadian east coast) during the month ofOctober, 2017.

Brandt and I originally received funding for the series from Arts Nova Scotia in 2014, and the NS Art Bank purchased two works for its collection in 2015.

Artists’ Statement:
The figures of Brandt Eisner and Susan Malmstrom’s collaborative exhibition Odd Jobs labour at their occupations in distorted, hyperreal settings. For each image, the artists offer their take on what troubling dreams these characters – all of whom are portrayed by Eisner – might experience. In addition to their own occupational hazards, the characters also face various social and environmental disasters that currently confront waking life in contemporary society. Eisner is known throughout the Halifax region for his whimsical, sometimes over-the-top wearable art, a skill used to produce the characters for each image. Malmstrom, who edited the work using digital media, has concentrated on photography and installation for 25+ years. Odd Jobs is the first collaborative effort between the artists, who consider the series a work in progress.

Repository of Wonders in West Hollywood:
Another installation in SoCal of curiosities and artifacts from various eras, realms and epochs.

More Than A Cone
It was exciting to take part in last year’s More Than A Cone fundraiser on behalf of animal welfare in Southern California.

One of MTAC’s fundraising activities is an auction of art using the “cone of shame” — that lampshade looking thing that pets have to wear to keep them from bothering their injuries. The organization supplies the cones and the artists do the rest. Here are the pieces I donated.

Repository of Wonders

Photographic Art / Digital Imagery

Artist’s Statement

Susan Malmstrom attended California State University, Long Beach where she earned her Bachelor of Fine Arts degree with a Specialization in Printmaking; and was awarded a Master of Fine Arts in Visual Arts from the University of California at Irvine.
Her work originally consisted of still life images created using the antique processes of the earliest days of photography, such as Vandyke and salted paper printing. Although her images are now created digitally, the work remains faithful to transforming real objects existing in time and space into non-reality based, allegorical imagery; exploring personal and collective memory.
Since 2011, she has been installing her cabinet of curiosities, The Repository of Wonders, wherever and whenever possible--most recently at the Pacific Aquarium in Long Beach.
Malmstrom recently left the east coast of Canada to return to Southern California, and now resides in Pasadena.