Mathematics describes the world in a language of pure abstraction, homing in on consistent truths through numbers, variables and calculations. Even something as complex as the way a bubble forms, floats and pops can find expression in a series of equations. But can such a system ever articulate more personal, painful phenomena, devoid of logic and mired in bodily experience? Could one create a cohesive theorem of grief?
It has been 10 years since Colchester artist Susan Smereka’s brother, Peter, died by suicide. Much of her output in the interim has been tinged with mourning or has referenced their relationship and broader family dynamics. In “constant continuum,” at Studio Place Arts in Barre through October 25, she presents never-before-exhibited prints, collages, artist’s books and other works created over the past decade that are directly related to her brother’s death.
Peter Smereka was a professor of mathematics at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor. Also a physicist and engineer, he was “widely regarded as the leading authority” on fluid dynamics problems of “bubbly liquid flow,” according to his obituary from that institution. The exhibition includes a few of his papers, some with handwritten notes. Susan said on a recent phone call that “the origins of much of his work came from a very early fascination with water bubbles.”
She carries that interest through the show as recurring dots and splashes. They’re central to some of the spiral-bound sketchbooks she presents, such as “critical points,” a series of watercolor studies. The dots help to illuminate larger, hollow, three-dimensional forms that look like double-ended trumpets, old-fashioned phones or wormholes in space.
Those tunnels return in different permutations throughout the show. Smereka is known for the “quarter-almond” shapes that populate much of her broader body of work, shapes she has described as related to family and ways of connecting. The tunnels seem to replace them in “constant continuum,” creating a vocabulary of forms attempting to communicate across a vast space and continuing a conversation in which her brother used to send her graphs and charts. The tunnel forms are originally Peter’s — Smereka offers visitors a postcard showing his doodles of the shapes, which he drew during the last year of his life.
“Figure,” a 38-by-72-inch, two-sided, sewn collage, hangs above the gallery’s central stairwell and acts as a more substantial, deeper investigation of Peter’s drawing. Here, the drawn, collaged and painted shapes are dimensional and seem like diagrams illustrating theoretical problems, embellished with lines, grids and arrows; Smereka has added mathematical notations and text in pencil, giving the effect of a well-used chalkboard. She draws with her sewing machine, and her zigzagging lines of thread range from direct and predictable to jumbles of stitches. They seem to answer the math in their own language. The tiny holes from the sewing needle form another kind of tunnel from one side of the piece to the other, as though bridging two dimensions.
Many of the works in the show have this investigatory quality, especially the artists’ books. “Solitary Wave,” which the label describes as work in progress, is made of heavy paper layered with pastel, inks and charcoal describing circles, cubes, fields of lines, washes. The pages are worked and worked again, an accumulation of process and time.
By contrast, Smereka’s more minimal pieces offer insight into specific moments. The artist recalled how, while working on “not not still,” a digitally printed artist’s book, at a residency at the former New City Galerie in Burlington, she found that “death just kept coming up as a subject matter, and I couldn’t understand why.” When she learned Peter had died, she was still at the residency, and “it just funneled all the ideas that I was working on to grieving.” The result is raw and direct, with surreal drawings of figures and selected words — “pointless distance,” “dark escape,” the word “alone” repeated across a page — that respond loudly to pain.
Nearby on the gallery wall, “long-term relationship,” a 41.5-by-29.5-inch work on paper from 2018, appears to be a series of short threads or graphite lines in more or less even rows across the page, reading almost like a record of sound waves. In fact, it is lengths of Peter’s hair. The Victorians popularized making mementos from a late loved one’s locks, but this takes that tradition to a new level, each hair placed methodically in line with great care. It’s achingly simple and sad.
Two other works on paper, “radio show” and “letter mood,” act as companions to that piece. For both, Smereka transcribed portions of Peter’s letters onto thin Japanese paper in graphite. Each page is then pleated in horizontal folds, which are sewn shut: You can tell there are words there, but they’re unreadable. Smereka said her brother was a great letter writer — “silly and goofy and creative” — offering encouragement for her art making as well as updates on his life. These works read as both a silencing of that voice and a way of keeping it close and private. We can’t read Peter’s words, not because they are censored but because they are protected from view.
In several artist’s books from the past couple of years, made with Gelli plate transfers and collage, Smereka seems to let the world enter her bubble of grief. Imagery — bits of maps, references to water — carries over from her earlier books and prints, but transferred photographic images and found text add a sense of connection and open possibility. In “Admitted” (2023) and “semblance” (2025), a bold printing style solidifies and concretizes the doodle forms. They read with more confidence, as though they’re now fully incorporated into her visual vocabulary.
The show as a whole poignantly illuminates a process of investigation that, with so many unknown variables, can never posit a conclusive hypothesis. The full narrative of Peter’s death, Smereka said, is still a mystery. So is the nature of grief itself. “What is my grief, besides anger and guilt?” she asked. “I want to have the full spectrum, but I feel like if I had the story, I could process it better.” The works on view do not tell a complete story, but they do resonate with echoes of meaning.
Processing through her artwork, Smereka said, has allowed her to explore different aspects of her grief and in a sense to communicate with Peter, in as honest and forthcoming a way as possible. “I think this show has helped me find my next step,” she said. “I’m not done, by any means.”
If you or someone you know is thinking about suicide, dial 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline or text VT to 741741 for the Crisis Text Line. Trained counselors are available 24-7.
“constant continuum,” by Susan Smereka, on view through October 25 at Studio Place Arts in Barre.
The original print version of this article was headlined “Modalities of Mourning | Susan Smereka processes loss with ‘constant continuum'”
This article appears in Oct 15-21 2025.
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