Suzan Frecon: oil paintings and sun

Texts by David Cohen and Suzan Frecon

For the past four decades, Suzan Frecon has become known for abstract oil paintings and watercolors that avoid facile explanations or recognizable visual associations. Instead, compositions integrate color, surface, and light to create an abstract visual reality that she intends to exist solely on its strength as art. In a deliberative and searching process, she works toward painting that provides a complex, powerful, and inexplicable experience for the viewer. As she has stated, “The physical reality and the spiritual content of my paintings are the same.”

oil paintings and sun documents Frecon’s third solo exhibition at David Zwirner in New York, held in 2015, and is the most vivid presentation to date of the artist’s engagement with natural light, the always-varying subtleties of which she integrates into how the painting is created. The focal point of the catalogue is the painstakingly reproduced color plates of fourteen recent paintings, many of which are depicted several times in various types of light and from multiple angles, allowing the reader to experience the work in a way that is more akin to seeing them in person. In addition, it features an illuminating and lively essay by art writer David Cohen, which strives to explain the complexity of viewing and experiencing Frecon’s work. Rounding out the catalogue are numerous details and installation views, atmospheric color photographs of the artist’s studio and materials, and an illustrated visual appendix showing a selection of Frecon’s reference sources for the comprised works, including insightful commentary written by the artist.