Susan Moldenhauer, Buckhorn Bar & Parlor, photo by DPTurner Photography
Susan Moldenhauer has been a fine art photographer since she graduated with her MFA from Penn State in 1982. She has a national exhibition record, is represented in numerous public collections, and has self-published books.
Moldenhauer’s photographic work has used the landscape as its foundational element to explore light and shadow, time and place, and the poetic symmetry of the moment. Since 1982, she has worked collaboratively with photographer Jennifer Anne Tucker exploring image conversations, the use of fabrics in image-making, and, most recently, creating an image dialogue relating eastern/western skies. Since 2008, Sequencing Through Time and Place, a creative collaboration with artist Wendy Lemen Bredehoft and dancer/choreographer Margaret Wilson has explored place through on-location research in visual art, dance/choreography, and photography.
Her extensive arts administrative and curatorial work began at Penn State in 1984 when she became the School of Visual Arts Gallery Manager. In 1986, she was appointed the Director and Curator of Second Street Gallery in Charlottesville, VA. In 1991, she became the Curator of Museum Programs at the University of Wyoming Art Museum, and in 2000, she became its Director and Chief Curator. She retired in 2017 to pursue her studio practice full-time.
Moldenhauer has been a community advocate for artists and co-founded the Laramie Artists Project, which presents the biennial exhibition, Touchstone Laramie. She also co-founded such public art programs as the Laramie Mural Project and the Laramie Public Art Coalition. In 2016 and 2023, she received Wyoming Arts Council Fellowships, and in 2017, her personal work and state-wide community achievements were recognized as she won a Wyoming Governor’s Arts Award. She lives and works in Laramie, WY.