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SHERMAN, TEXAS—Austin College hosts an exhibit by artist Susan Sponsler through March 11 in the Dennis Gallery of Forster Art Complex. The artist will speak Monday, March 7, at 4:30 p.m. in Forster Art Complex Room 111, presenting “Our Stories, Our Voices: Adoptee Korean Artists,” and on Thursday, March 10, at 1:30 p.m. in Forster Art Complex Room 113 about the work on display. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday 9 a.m. to 4;30 p.m. The exhibit and the artist lectures are free and open to the public.
Born in Seoul, Korea, Sponsler was adopted by American parents and grew up in Iowa with three younger brothers. Much of her art is related to her ethnicity and her adoption by Caucasian American parents.
Work in the Austin College exhibit includes "Assumed Identity," mixed media and photo-based images that explore autobiographic issues related to her adoption from Korea and the relationship between her cross-cultural adoption and her experience as an Asian American. “Like Asian Americans born in the United States, Asian American adoptees experience almost total immersion in American culture,” she said. “But in a multi-cultural society increasingly concerned with developing pride in one's ethnic heritage, cross-cultural adoptees’ broken link to their past cul¬ture via ancestry and tradition sometimes creates a web of contradiction and confusion regard¬ing identity.”
Sponsler said some of the works explore the loss of ethnic culture and genetic links using grids to fragment her past; while others use grids to blend together family photographs that document the love and attention she has received throughout her life. “These images of a loving home environ¬ment are juxtaposed with images showing my conflicting feelings in perceived societal pres¬sures to reconnect ties to the country of my birth and to my birth mother, and the frustration of being assumed a recent immigrant based on my ethnic heritage,” the artist said.
The exhibit also includes new pieces in her "Yellow Work" and consists of mixed media, encaustic, and photo-based images, again relating to her own ethnicity. “Nobody wants to be "yellow" in America,” she said. “My early dislike of the color yellow was closely entwined with my low self esteem as an Asian American. In recent years Asian American writers have begun to embrace 'yellow'. We are taking back yellow, as black Americans turned 'black' from derogatory to powerful in the 1960s. Naming ourselves yellow now comes from acknowledging a history of racism and the strength of our survival. “
Sponsler’s work has been included in numerous exhibits around the country, including solo exhibitions at The Encaustic Center in Richardson, Texas; New York University; and the Arts can Gallery in Houston.
She earned a bachelor's degree in advertising design at Iowa State University and soon joined the marketing and communication staff at Texas Woman’s University. She earned a Master of Fine Arts degree in photography from TWU and now serves as creative director at TWU. She and her husband, John Carstarphen, an independent filmmaker, live in Richardson, Texas.
Austin College is a leading national independent liberal arts college located north of Dallas in Sherman, Texas. Founded in 1849, making it the oldest institution of higher education in Texas operating under original charter and name, the college is related by covenant to the Presbyterian Church (USA). Recognized nationally for academic excellence in the areas of international education, pre-professional training, and leadership studies, Austin College is one of 40 schools profiled in Loren Pope’s influential book Colleges that Change Lives.
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