Suzanne Harkhoe

Biography

Suzanne Harkhoe is a Dutch Surinamese conceptual artist and technologist active in installation, painting in mixed media, technology-based art, sculpture, photography and film. She is based in Rotterdam.

Artist Statement

The work of Suzanne Harkhoe deals with the exploration and practice of freedom, amongst other subject matter. Her dystopian world view towards contemporary society is born out of her belief in equality and freedom. She is an artist who identifies with the Marxist critique of political society. Therefore her anti-capitalist and anti-imperialist sentiment, as well as, and enforced by her identity is reflected in the works. She is a child of immigrants and working-class people, a product of colonial imperial history, a woman, a person of colour and a technologist. As a part of the Surinam diaspora living in western Europe, the duplicity of living in the country that had colonized her native land is an element in her work. Her personal social reality is shaped by social structures that limit her freedom and the racism, patriarchy and ecocide they enable and enforce. Some of the works of Suzanne Harkhoe are therefore extremely critical of society. As such she also creates protest art and diaspora art.

She addresses the need for ontological system changes, through coding as a medium in her work.

She is an artist who also practices self-ontological criticism through her work. This is a result of her own social construct which disguises a less subjective reality and oftentimes results in a form of cognitive dissonance. 

Website https://suzanneharkhoe.com/