Artist Spotlight: Susan Hardy

If one were to enter the Drawing Room at the Lippitt House Museum, see the small-scale sculptural works installed on individual white pedestals, and ask, “What are these?,” this would be exactly the response artist Susan Hardy hopes to provoke. A multi-media artist and curator of  Lippitt House Museum’s On Being American | Contemporary Artworks, Echoes of the Past, Susan Hardy invites visitors to be curious about her work, a response implied by the title of her installation: Curios. 

Leaning into the idea of the cabinet of curiosity, the Victorian impulse towards the collection of eccentric objets d’arte, and the human need to convey meaning through collection and display, Hardy asks viewers to ponder the gathering and arrangement of objects as a form of meaning-making. While Victorian curiosity collecting was an intrinsically upper-class practice intended to display taste, status, and refinement, Hardy subtly subverts this consciously consumptive habit. Rather than relying on the value-making practices of the past—costly materials, exotic places of origin—Hardy designs her curios out of recycled artwork and intentionally avoids creating pieces based on a laboriously thought-out process. By relying on everyday materials on hand, Hardy invites viewers to rethink the nature of curiosities, display, and what we hope to present.

Susan Hardy’s Curios on display in front of the mirrored étagère, designed to display decorative objects in the Lippitt House Drawing Room.

Curios consists of 14 objets d’art, all between five and eight inches tall and arranged on polished white square pedestals placed upon a black tablecloth. In speaking of her installation, Hardy says, “My intention is a curio, something to admire for its oddness. A whimsical construct of no apparent utility or a small shard that takes on a life of its own.” 

About the Artist: Susan Hardy is a multi-media artist whose work ranges across the mediums of printmaking, drawing, painting, book making, and most recently, site specific installations. She combines elements of her travels, long distance hiking, her time living in Africa, history that involves the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the quietude of nature. Her work is meant to elicit reflection and stimulate conversation. In speaking of her work, she says, “[h]istory and memory, taking risks and immersing myself in new cultures and new environments are just a few of the elements that provide me with material for an archive with which I develop my art pieces.” 

Hardy’s most recent exhibit was at The Bristol Museum of Art in Bristol, Rhode Island in early 2026. In the Course of Human Events was a national exhibit to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It showcased Hardy’s work entitled “The Middle Passage.” She has also exhibited locally at Brown University’s Rockefeller Library, the Providence Art Club, and Cade Tompkins Projects. Her work is in private, corporate, and museum collections. Hardy grew up in Washington DC and graduated from the Maryland institute College of Art in Baltimore Maryland.  

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Curios will be on display in the Drawing Room of Lippitt House Museum as part of On Being American | Contemporary Artworks, Echoes of the Past, an exhibition reimagining the historic house through the work of five contemporary artists. The exhibit will be open to the public on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Saturdays between May 13 and June 20, 2026.