Combining painting and sculpture into innovative forms

Los Angeles artist Susan Maddux uses meticulous folding to transform paintings into sculpture, creating wall pieces that range in size from twelve inches to seven feet tall and come off the wall from two to six inches.

 Each piece is made from numerous individual acrylic on canvas paintings that are folded and formed into a single piece. Canvas is painted, folded, and unfolded many times in the process of experimenting and searching for the proportions and patterning of the final form. 

Maddux is a 4th generation hapa-Japanese born and raised in Hawaii with stints on the continent growing up. This body of work explores reconnection with personal history and place through the transformation of material. 

Her process makes a connection with generations of women before her through the ritual of gesture: Smoothing, folding, shaking out cloth. Repetition. Accumulation. Veneration. Reflection. 

Maddux has a Bachelors in Fine Art degree in painting from the San Francisco Art Institute