“A picture reaches the plane of being art when it’s ungraspable and you really can’t explain it.”
—Suzan Frecon
Suzan Frecon is known for abstract oil paintings and works on paper that are at once reductive and expressive. Made over long stretches of time, her canvases embody the durational activity of painting itself and invite the viewer’s sustained attention: these, as the artist herself has noted, are “paintings that you experience.”
Suzan Frecon
annunciata, 2019
Oil on linen
Overall: 87 3/8 x 108 x 1 1/2 inches
221.9 x 274.3 x 3.8 cm
“With the long summer days, I have much more time to work in my studio.... I’m happiest when I can show [the paintings] in natural light, because that means there will be so many more dimensions that the viewer can experience.”
—Suzan Frecon
Antonello da Messina, Virgin Annunciate, c. 1476. Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo
Antonello da Messina, Virgin Annunciate, c. 1476. Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo
“While Frecon’s paintings are
often inspired by a specific experience...the painting finally dislodges itself from its origins and enters, as she herself put it, ‘a high plane of abstraction.’”
—John Yau, poet and critic
...
Interior view, Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo, 2018. Courtesy the Italy project told through architecture, funded by the MiBACT Directorate for Contemporary Creativity.
Photo by Alessandro Lanzetta
Interior view, Palazzo Abatellis, Palermo, 2018. Courtesy the Italy project told through architecture, funded by the MiBACT Directorate for Contemporary Creativity.
Photo by Alessandro Lanzetta
Photo by Suzan Frecon, 2020
Photo by Suzan Frecon, 2020
“In architecture, there’s the spandrel—this little triangle that has no apparent function—but which is important to the effect of the arch....
I do think of your watercolors a little bit like that.”
—Marcella Durand, in conversation with Suzan Frecon
Suzan Frecon
war, big, 2020
Watercolor on Indian hemp paper
Framed: 28 1/4 x 21 3/4 inches
71.8 x 55.2 cm
Photo by Julie Brown Harwood, 2015
Photo by Julie Brown Harwood, 2015
Suzan Frecon
vermilion solo, 2019
Watercolor on agate-burnished Indian hemp paper
Framed: 20 5/8 x 25 1/4 inches
52.4 x 64.1 cm
Installation view, Suzan Frecon: Recent Oil Paintings, David Zwirner, London, 2017
Installation view, Suzan Frecon: Recent Oil Paintings, David Zwirner, London, 2017
“It is not enough to have color. Something has to hold the color, and the art. Composition! I cannot express how important it is.”
—Suzan Frecon
Suzan Frecon
orange bluebird study, 2019
Watercolor on old Indian rag paper
Framed: 15 3/4 x 18 3/4 inches
40 x 47.6 cm
40 x 47.6 cm
Photo by Julie Brown Harwood, 2015
Photo by Julie Brown Harwood, 2015
“We scrutinize these paintings both for the pleasure they give us and the mystery they retain…. The paintings challenge us as they nourish our senses: Can we let go of words and just look?”
—John Yau
Suzan Frecon in her studio with book of paint, 2015. Photo by Julie Brown Harwood
Suzan Frecon in her studio with book of paint, 2015. Photo by Julie Brown Harwood
All John Yau quotes excerpted from a new catalogue to be published on the occasion of Suzan Frecon’s solo exhibition of paintings opening at David Zwirner New York in September 2020.
Learn More about Suzan Frecon