Susan Hiller Homepage

"...In Sentimental Representations, Hiller uses 'pages' of dried rose petals suspended in acrylic medium, with typed texts, neatly arranged to compose what resembles a conventional painting. This painting is the first section of a two-part work commemorating the lives of the artist's grandmothers, both of whom were named Rose. Hiller has described the thoughts and feelings that accompanied the laborious and time-consuming making of the work as 'opening a closed book'. This 'closed book' can provide us with a new understanding of the relationship between tradition and innovation, between art and craft, and between gender and language, as Hiller's subtle manipulation of materials deliberately blurs the distinction between something visible and tangible, its representation in art, and its symbolic content."