Clockwise from left: A sculpture inspired by Sue Beatrice's art studio; an exterior sculpture encased in a watch; a sculpture of a rat on a book made out of watch materials. Photos courtesy of Sue Beatrice.
Doha, Qatar: It is quite effortless to get lost in the tiny worlds of sculptures crafted by American artist Sue Beatrice as each watch assembles a moment forever captured in time.
She has spent over two decades mastering this craft as the US-based artist now presents her timeless pieces to the art aficionados of Doha in the Tadweer Art Exhibition at Souq Waqif.
Speaking to The Peninsula, Beatrice recalled how she stumbled upon this concept quite serendipitously when she looked for ways to protect her small sculptures made of natural materials.
"Early on, I was using a lot of natural materials for small sculptures, I wanted to protect them and that's how I started using watch cases," she said.
Her array of intricate pieces is primarily built out of irreparable watch parts and cases from the 1800s sourced around the globe including the United Kingdom, Argentina, and Eastern Europe.
While some deem the watches disposable and no longer of value, Beatrice spares no fragment to revive each timepiece into vessels of memorable portraits and thought-provoking scenes.
"I will never take apart a watch that is either working or could easily be fixed. I don’t want to do anything to harm the history that's in the watches," she said.
Among the creations that elicited oohs and aahs from the crowd at the exhibit were the sculptures of the Amir His Highness Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani and the Father Amir His Highness Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al-Thani. The sculptures were made out of metal moulded using silicon rubber and then refined down to the finest detail in likeness before being encased in antique watches.
Beatrice also makes use of forced perspective to depict striking indoor and outdoor environments through multiple layers of detail. When asked about her most treasured piece, she pointed to a sculpture of her art studio.
"This is sort of a reflection of my own art studio, complete with the disarray," she said.
While the assemblage of a particular piece takes weeks to finish, Beatrice will be collecting watch parts and gears for the same for months, if not years.
History passed down and revived
Throughout the years, Beatrice has touched a lot of lives, literally and figuratively, with every piece of sculpture she made. Oftentimes, her works are met with tears from clients who wanted poignant memories to be stored with time.
"When I'm working on a watch, I can kind of feel the person who owned it especially if the watch is really special to them. You can tell when a piece has been held a lot and handled a lot. And sometimes, you'll even get a little whiff of the perfume or the aftershave," she told The Peninsula.
There have been plenty of encounters and discoveries throughout Beatrice's journey in working with watches. For one instance, she has discovered a person's signature inside a watch during different stages of the person's life. Another is when she was asked to make a final tribute to a touching story of a grandfather and grandchild. A 92-year-old watchmaker once passed down his tools to Beatrice when he could no longer continue the craft.
"He has since then passed, but his tools continue to work," she said.
"I think there's a touch of memento mori in a lot of the pieces. To tie back into the history; to remember that these pieces have all passed through the hands of others. Their entire lives have kind of echoed in the pieces," Beatrice said.
Similarly, she wanted to take up the same mission by making heirlooms out of time-wrought watches and have them passed down through generations.
In the future, she also aspires to incorporate layers of her sculptures into functioning watches.
Since she was young, Beatrice knew she was destined to make her own designs and pave her path in the world of art. Before discovering her passion for this craft, Beatrice spent decades sculpting for Disney and an artist in the toy industry to cope with life's basic needs, even if it meant trading her artistic freedom.
She was in her early 50s when she realized that she no longer wanted to work for other people and took up the chance to step up and produce her own creations.
She said: "I've made a lot of money for other people in my life, and I have gotten the satisfaction of a job well done but not the satisfaction of being able to say this comes from my heart."
She added: "And now, I can show people work that really comes from me, my heart and soul, my vision, without an art director telling me what it's supposed to look like. And that's very liberating."
