Aspen Snowmass Announces 2019-20 Winter Season Lift Ticket Artist, Susan Te Kahurangi King

Aspen Snowmass announces New Zealand native, Susan Te Kahurangi King, as the selected artist for the 2019-20 winter season lift ticket art. This will mark the 15th consecutive year that Aspen Snowmass has partnered with an acclaimed artist to design the lift ticket.

"Susan King’s art sparks a similar joy to spending time in our beautiful mountains and in this incredible community," says Mike Kaplan, president and CEO of Aspen Skiing Company. “Though her point of view was formed on the other side of the globe, there’s an appeal to her visual language that resonates equally well here.”

A native of New Zealand, the 68-year-old King has always made art for herself, not the marketplace, and this authenticity is transmitted in the series of drawings showcased on Aspen Snowmass’ lift tickets. King’s artistic journey began as a young child, when at age 5, she began to lose her ability to speak. By age 7, she had stopped speaking entirely. During the same period, encouraged by her grandmother, King became an increasingly talented and prolific artist, capable of focusing on her drawing for hours on end. In the ensuing six decades, King has produced a substantial body of work, despite taking a 15-year break starting in the mid-90s.

“The Aspen Idea is founded on the ideals of mind, body and spirit, and the lift ticket art program is a perfect expression of our values of self-reflection and creativity along with our community’s strong bond around the arts,” says Mike Kaplan, president and CEO, Aspen Snowmass. “We are incredibly excited to work with Susan King, whose art sparks a similar joy that is found spending time in the beautiful mountains and this incredible community.”

King’s exhibition history is extensive with representation in major art fairs, galleries and museums by prominent curators. She has been featured in many exhibitions, events and publications in a range of contexts both as an ‘Outsider artist’ and a ‘Contemporary artist’. These include The Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami; American Folk Art Museum, New York; Marlborough, London; Outsider Art Fairs in New York and Paris with Chris Byrne; Andrew Edlin Gallery, New York; Robert Heald Gallery, Wellington; and the Auckland Art Fair 2018.

What becomes immediately evident in King’s drawings is the rigorousness of her visual vocabulary. This body of works features an abundance of colour, generated predominantly in felt tip markers, a medium scarcely used in her earlier works.

In previous years, Aspen Snowmass has featured commissioned works by internationally recognised artists such as Hank Willis Thomas, Paula Crown, Yutaka Sone, Carla Klein, Mamma Andersson, Mark Grotjahn, Mark Bradford, Takashi Murakami and Laura Owens. The lift ticket art programme was started as a partnership between the Aspen Art Museum and Aspen Snowmass in 2005.