Multi-disciplinary artist, Susan Sentler, takes us into her world of beauty, dance and appearance, redefining the expectations of the face and body.

So do I begin? Oh wow… My practice, my practice I would say is multi-disciplinary. At present, not only do I make work with the body but I work also with film, photography, objects, sound. I collaborate with others too in order to create the works that I am interested in. And I like installation formats because I’m really interested in how things lapse and evolve over time. And it very much encourages the spectators to stay with the works. I find especially in this technological age, people want to just go into something, see it, take a selfie and they’re out. Instead of taking a moment to be with the work or be with another person. It’s about having a bit of conversation, a dialogue, an exchange but again that takes time. so I’m really into the premise of slowing down time, through the work that I create and do. It comes from a desire or a practice that I do called Soulmatic practices. Soulmatic means the body and practice is practice. Basically it’s about going in. They all hone in on going into the body. Using clothes, touch, trying to hone into our bodies; from inside out not from outside in. So we’re infolding before we unfold. And I’m very much interested in that and in my making, even if a work ends up as something that becomes more about everyday images that don’t even encapsulate the body, that come from a body place, from my body triggered and I’m very interested in that.

I loved dance and I desired it when I was younger I basically started dancing quote unquote professionally in my late teens but more early twenties. And when I moved to Manhattan which was mainly in my twenties I danced with my second company The Martha Graham Dance Company, known to be the Mother of Modern Dance, It was very theatrical but it came from a bodily place but overtly in a precedent stage, very form orientated. Some did come from a soulmatic place but in a very different way. Anyway through time in my thirties when I started working in London, I started playing with improvisation. I was introduced to other kinds of forms and styles and strategies, methodologies of working with dance. And I started falling in love with the post-modern era, which is more of working with every day, stripping down, simplifying and the older I got the more I started to realise how beautiful that was and how intricate and almost it itself had a virtuosity that virtuosity doesn’t have to be at the lift of the leg, the extension, this kind of technical prowess. Virtuosity can be going in and being silent and being still and what is the movement in the stillness. And I started being profoundly interested in that. And strangely enough when I started being interested in that, I looked back into my photography practice because I started doing photography at 19 and I was good at it. Now because of my interest in the state and stillness of the body and stuff, the photography has come back. And it’s very exciting but it comes from a different place. The way I shoot comes from a different place than when I was younger, and I want to hand hold the camera, I don’t want to put it on the apparatus. I want it to come from my body so the manner in which I either do film or photographic stills comes from a real bodily place.


I think people understand dance in a particular way. I think it doesn’t help with the variety shows- e.g. So you think you can dance. There is the dance there, I’m not saying it is bad but it just gives one particular lens of what it is. Same with visual arts, same with fashion, same with any kind of artistic enterprise. If you see it through one particular lens, you’re only getting slight taste of what that art form can possibly be and I think that has problematic issues with it. In dance, you tend to see the virtuosity of who can lift the leg high enough, who can jump high enough, who can spin more, you know more more more more more more! But if there’s not a honed in sense of quality, of sensitivity, transparency, of intention- you got problems, I believe, with what the work is.

Unfortunately, there are standards set with the outer appearance of the body being of more importance. You have to think of what kind of work you’re interested in terms of dance, is your body capable for that, is it trained, is it open enough to expand and explore others? But to fix on a type? For me, personally, ethically, I think it’s inappropriate. But there are dance companies who desire a particular look which I just think is quite sad.


I mean the healthier you feel inside, the more connected you are with yourself, with your breath, with the fluidity of your body. I mean we’re composed mainly of water. All these kind of things, I believe, it can only help the way you look outside. Of course, you know, other influences- with the way you eat, do you smoke or not, the climate in which you live in, the external factors of pollution will contribute. There’s also stress. All those kind of things. But to kind of, a lot of times, cosmetics or interventions.

And yeah there are things I would like to change to my appearance or weight but truthfully would I feel good? Would I feel really good? I think I look pretty good. And I remember I was watching television show- What was that model, the black model who really transformed modelling in fashion, very slender, from Africa- Alek Wek, and she was talking to these young models about how true beauty is really coming from the inside. She said you got to really trust your inner beauty, your inner knowledge of your body. It’s not about the outside, the outside does matter, in their field, in their work, but if they aren’t honed in on that- its going change how the outside is projected. We talk a lot about dance, about transparency and then if you’re really honed in the body, I find, I see dancers and they are transparent, it’s almost like you can see through them. And it’s so beautiful but you need to be in tuned with the body as a whole.

I actually use very little. I’m lazy when it comes to that. And I just, I don’t know, I’m lucky, I’m similar to my mother and she had blemishes till the day she died and she passed away in her mid 70s. I still get blemishes every once in a while. My skin, my face and body is kind of multi- I have dry spots but I also have very oily spots too. Therefore, I can tan easily, I can catch sun easily- I do use protection and I would not walk around without it, especially in South East Asia. But at the same time, I can get sun and it doesn’t destroy my skin, which is nice. Flip side, I use very little creams. The creams that I tend to buy I maybe buy face creams. and I go to Italy a lot and I buy Creams that are at the pharmacies, they made them there so the products are, you don’t pay a lot of money for it because they are not medically produced, so they don’t have to worry about the cruelty of the products but they’re good products and there are refined elements in them. I tend to buy those. I tend to buy after sun products, because when I do get sun, and they’re difficult to buy in Asia because a lot people want to go white instead of dark which is really quite a shame but so I suck up those when I’m in Europe because it’s very difficult to get those here. And I wear, I love nail polish on hands and feet. And I love lipstick, And that’s about the gist of it.

I like that. I tend to be more attracted to products like that. I’ve never been this overtly feminine, you know, maybe when I was younger, yeah, but the older I got and I drifted through and I like products and things that could be read either/or. I remember Helmut Lang when he first popped up. I was like Yes! You couldn’t teak the label, it had this androgyny, masculine/feminine. I liked those kind of edgy things and I still do. And I think they look better on me, truthfully. Also looking for me, not through, what is it, fashion, but what works for me as a person, as an older woman, and I don’t want to look young but I do want to look good. What works for me because I like to move, I like to be comfortable. I would still invest in Balenciaga trainers because I adore them so it’s kind of a give and take of what you’re trying to do or to give back to the product, I’m all supportive of that because I think that opens it up to we all whatever gender you are whatever you want to call yourself or be or elude to, we’ve all got skin and skin is the largest organ- and how we’re going to protect it, hoe we’re going to deal with it, how we’re going to help it and it shouldn’t be this or that, it should be for us for humans who are on this Earth.