All artwork images and scans are copyright protected by the artist. 2020 ©Suzanne Benton All Rights Reserved.
Delilah as the Sphinx, copper coated steel
26 x 13 x 11 inches
Goddess Torso, steel with bronze brazing
19.25 x 20 x 7.27 inches
Beloved, steel, polyurethane coat
79 x 18 x 14 inches
Menorah (Sabbath/Channukah), bronze
110 x 58 x 50 inches
Sculpture
Suzanne Benton created over 700 welded steel and bronze metal sculpture works and masks. With a BA from Queens College (CUNY) in Fine Arts, Benton went on to study welded sculpture at the Silvermine School of Art, New Canaan, CT in1965. She'd thought she'd created her last masks in 1996 to bring to Sarajevo and Zenica, Bosnia one year after the war, to lead mask and story workshops with refugee women and youth. But then in 2011, she worked in Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2011, leading a welding sculpture workshop at the Sculpture Department, Dhaka University. There she created two new welded masks during demonstrations for the students. Most recently, she's been creating copper and paper pulp masks, and copper, bronze, and cor-ten steel steles.
Early on, Benton described her fascination with the welding process: "I found my medium, the welding torch, the great transformer. It brought me into a cosmic world. I had to live in that sphere of consciousness every day, watching, making the metal move according to my will, my intuition, my brain; I was enchanted by the repetitive actions and the shapes as they appeared before me."
Her artworks are in public and private collections worldwide.