Suzanne Coley

Suzanne Coley creates multi-sensory artistic experiences that showcase her skills in embroidery, printmaking, poetry, and bookbinding.

Coley’s art often explores how trauma can materialize in cultural memory; it shines a light on overlooked or forgotten stories. Her stories are reflections of the physical, moral, and psychological struggles that are part of the human experience.

In 2018 she began creating the series “Love Sonnets from Shakespeare to Baltimore.” The project, supported by a grant from the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation in 2020, uses Shakespeare’s sonnets to create a dialogue between the past and the present. Coley examines and translates Shakespeare’s language through art with a variety of contemporary and historical textiles and needlework techniques.

Coley’s artwork is in the permanent collections of the Smithsonian National Museum of African Art, the National Museum of Women in the Arts, and the Folger Shakespeare Library. Coley was a 2023-24 resident artist/scholar at Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and a 2023-24 Folger Shakespeare Institute Fellow. She appeared in the 2023 PBS Great Performance documentary Making Shakespeare: The First Folio.

Coley’s art is currently on exhibit at the Folger from September 16, 2024 – February 9, 2025.