Meet Susan Aurinko of Aurinko Photo in West Loop

Today we’d like to introduce you to Susan Aurinko.

Susan, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I went to Layton School of Art and Design (Now MIAD) after High School to study fine art and design. For the next twenty-plus years, I designed just about anything you can imagine – clothing, jewelry, interiors, furniture. One day, when my business partner in interior and furniture design had to get some images to the printer and our photographer didn’t show up, I shot the furniture myself. I realized I really liked it and took some classes at Harold Washington College to learn darkroom.

My partner moved out of state, and when I realized I didn’t want to do interiors by myself, I enrolled in Columbia College Chicago and studied photography for the next two and a half years while making portraits, shooting dance photography, and shooting for other interior designers including Nate Berkus when he was still in Chicago. I moved on to fine art photography and began showing (and selling!) my work. I opened FLATFILEgalleries in 2000 to give many young photographers a chance to show their work and build their careers. In the nine years the gallery thrived, I continued to make and show my own work in other galleries in France, Italy, and India, as well as the US.

The gallery was fantastic, and I loved curating, but it took a great deal of energy (and money) to run an 8,000sf gallery AND do my own work, so when the economy went bad in 2009, I closed the gallery and began to work on my own art full time.

In 2017, I had my first museum show of nearly forty pieces at LUMA on Michigan Avenue. The work was about Joan of Arc (I’ll give you a book if you tell me where to deliver it) and had obsessed me for four years and several months in France. The show is happily traveling now, and I’m currently working on a series called Muses and Mythologies, which celebrates women of all ages (the youngest is a five–month old baby, and the oldest is an 84-year-old physical trainer) and all ethnicities. I should know the venue for that one within about a month. I am also working on a series on Auschwitz which reimagines the terrain and life in the place where Auschwitz was built. That exhibition is also slated for a museum.

When I was in design, we had a quote from Yves St Laurent on our business cards. It read “A good designer can design anything.” I believe the same about photography, which is probably why there is such a broad range of subjects in my photographs. I’m pretty much interested in shooting almost anything I see, in my own way, particularly the details that are often overlooked.

I am blessed to have wonderful gallery representation – Arica Hilton in Chicago, and Navneet Raman in India. They both understand my vision and can, therefore, promote it to collectors. From my classic black and white side to the edgy urban grit I love to capture, there seems to be something for almost any taste – it’s not deliberate, it’s just my fascination with the world as I see it.

Has it been a smooth road?
I have been incredibly lucky. I have not shown in many group shows. My first solo show was offered to me while I was still at Columbia College by Point of View Gallery on Damen Avenue, and the MoCP purchased two pieces from the show for their permanent collection. I have always believed in serendipity, and feel that my good fortune is merely a matter of mindfulness – I think that so many opportunities pass us by every day if we’re not paying attention. When I get stressed, things don’t happen fortuitously – when I let it flow, it seems things fall in my lap.

So let’s switch gears a bit and go into the Aurinko Photo story. Tell us more about the business.
I’m not a company, per se. But my photography is quite different from most of what’s out there. Even when I made portraits, they were very different from other portraits.

I’m proud of my work, of how it speaks to people. Just today I was at a luncheon at the ULC for Photographer Ken Josephson and a couple who had purchased two pieces from the LUMA exhibition told me that they hung the two images in their bedroom so they can wake up and go to sleep looking at them. The wife said, “Now I have to make the bed every day because whenever someone comes over, they want to see them again!”

Having people enjoy my work on a daily basis, having it speak to them, is a great reward, actually, the best reward.

How do you think the industry will change over the next decade?
I think digital photography has demeaned Fine Art Photography terribly – everyone thinks they are a photographer and so many people think that if you make it big, it’s art.

There is definitely a trend back to analog photography, darkroom work, and even 19th-century processes. I’m so gratified to see that. If you go to really good galleries and museums, you will always see darkroom process work, but it’s harder to find than it used to be.

We live in a social media world – a world where a selfie is considered art, where social photography is considered art. Those of us who make fine art have to stay focused, no pun intended, on making good work, beautiful work, life-affirming work to keep true photography alive and well.

Pricing:

• My work begins at about $900 for an 8×10 and goes to roughly $4,000.

Contact Info:

• Address: 211 N Carpenter Street
• Website: www.aurinkophoto.com
• Phone: 773-517-2401
• Email: susanaurinko@me.com
• Instagram: susanaurinko
• Facebook: Susan Aurinko

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