David Zwirner is pleased to present new paintings by the American artist Suzan Frecon at the gallery’s 537 West 20th Street location in New York, marking the artist’s seventh solo exhibition at the gallery.

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.”1

The artist’s compositions are characterized by arcing and asymmetrically balanced forms and are defined by precise spatial and proportional relationships. Each surface is developed carefully and gradually, evolving from one canvas to the next in a process that combines preparation and intuition, order and chance. In Frecon’s paintings, composition serves as a foundational structure, holding color, material, and light.

Frecon mixes pigments and oils to differing effects, and her almost tactile use of color and contrasting matte and sheen surfaces heightens the visual experience of her work. Depending on the light source and viewing angle, different perceptions emerge. Colors and surfaces vary in terms of density and reflectivity, and areas of the compositions frequently shift between positive and negative space, or between figure and ground.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue published by David Zwirner Books, which includes an essay by John Yau.

1Suzan Frecon, “text and related work,” in Suzan Frecon: oil paintings and sun. Exh. cat. (New York: David Zwirner, 2015), p. 63.

Image
Susan Frecon, mars stealing the night, 2019
© Suzan Frecon
Courtesy the artist and David Zwirner