Press Release: Susan Vecsey: Seen and Unseen

untitled, cobalt, 2022 Susan Vecsey

May 23 to July 8, 2024

As we announced last summer, Quogue Gallery has transitioned to an on-line gallery. We are pleased to announce that our first show in this new format features the work of East Hampton and New York City-based painter, Susan Vecsey. This is Vecsey’s third solo exhibition with the gallery and it features nine paintings by the artist. We are not only showcasing Vecsey’s art in our virtual gallery space but we are also displaying selected paintings in curated spaces to give the collector the benefit of seeing the work in a home setting.

Vecsey is a painter interested in creating lyrical and poetic themes, Vecsey uses iconic imagery derived from nature.  In a recent review, Gabrielle Selz writes, “Inspired by painters like Paul Cézanne, Henri Matisse, Mark Rothko, Milton Avery and Helen Frankenthaler—all of whom explored the variance of tonality on limited compositional formats—Vecsey creates work that is filled with ideas about arrangement, lyrical color, perspective, repetition and surface.”

References to representational imagery are a starting point, a vehicle to convey a certain emotion and to explore color, form, and shape.  Vecsey states, “There is a great pleasure in the whole process of creating from the anticipation, the processing to the realization.”  Vecsey’s oil-stained linen and paper works carry on the color field and minimalist traditions in a contemporary context.  She begins with charcoal studies in which she draws her perceptive ideas on paper and then creates elaborate color studies.  Afterwards Vecsey thins oil paint and pours it directly on to primed linen or paper allowing it to flow naturally with some guidance from the artist.  Vecsey says, “With poured paint, timing is everything, and it is important to be decisive with it, and also ready to accept or reject the unexpected.”

Vecsey had a solo museum exhibition at the Greenville County Museum, South Carolina, in 2017 that was accompanied by an exhibition catalogue with an essay by Phyllis Tuchman. Tuchman stated that “Unlike, say, Fairfield Porter, another East End artist, Vecsey is less involved with the here and now. She’s not recording the details of daily life. She’s reminding you of places where you have been. With swooping curves, extended horizon lines, and a mix of tonal colors, Vecsey’s compelling images have the character of memories, recollections, and reveries. You’re revisiting sites of pleasure and wonderment.”

Susan Vecsey was born in New Jersey and currently lives and works in both New York City and East Hampton, New York.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York and her Master of Fine Arts from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture, studying under Graham Nickson. In 2012, Vecsey was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. The Nassau County Museum of Art acquired a work exhibited in Vecsey’s 2019 exhibition at Quogue Gallery for their permanent collection. The Parrish Museum in Water Mill, New York has recently acquired a painting for their permanent collection.  The painting is now on view at the Parrish Museum in the exhibition Beyond the Horizon through June 18th, 2024. In addition, Vecsey is the Spring 2024 Artist-In-Residence at La Masion de Simon located in France. Susan Vecsey’s paintings are widely held in public and private collections around the world.

 

ABOUT QUOGUE GALLERY

Quogue Gallery’s mission is to present a program of artistic excellence by showcasing the work of prominent, mid-career and emerging artists in the modernist tradition. Its core focus is on discovering and exhibiting figurative and abstract expressionist painters who are recognized historically as well as those of great promise who have fallen through cracks of history.

Since its founding in 2014, the Gallery’s growing presence in the modern and contemporary art world has been acknowledged by the press. The gallery has been featured in many publications, including the New York Times, Dan’s Paper, Beach Magazine, Hamptons Art Hub, Artnet News, Southampton Press, and others. The gallery also has been recognized for the quality of its exhibitions by Hamptons Art Hub, Artnet News and other outlets.