Suzanne Benton – Mask Performance Art

Born, raised and educated in NYC (Queens College, Fine Arts alum), Suzanne Benton is a printmaker, painter, metal sculptor, mask maker/performance artist, lecturer, and workshop leader. She believes the purpose of art is to explore humanity, and that art comes alive when it relates to people’s lives. She has been drawn to multicultural themes steeped in myth, ritual, and archetype. This work had oftentimes engages participation. Bridging cultures, her venues have stretched from New York City to villages in remote parts of Africa, India, and Nepal, as well as philosophy and education portals from Calcutta to Cambridge.

In this ninth decade of life, and as a working artist for nearly 70 years, she gives an occasional mask performance, is actively printmaking.
She says of her performance work:
“I came to the mask early on in the Second Wave Women’s movement. As a metal-welding sculptor, I wore a full-face darkened mask to protect my eyes, and a similar to covid mask to protect my lungs from welding ash. The unexpected cover surprisingly freed my artistic expression and began the thought to become a mask maker. When my feminist awakening revealed that the depth of women’s consciousness lay hidden behind mental and makeup masks acceptable to sexist morays, I came to see the vast power of masking could reveal what lay hidden. I’ve since created nearly 500 masks, and over 50 mask tales that reexamine the canon of religion, history and myth’s limited breadth of female possibility. My mask and tales are truth telling, and meant to awaken, challenge and inspire change.”