Suzy Spence was born in 1969 and grew up on the coast of Maine. Her mother, painter Marcia Stremlau, often took her daughter along to sketch the Maine landscapes. This informed Spence’s later practice, as she now identifies stylistically with the vernacular of Maine artists like Marsden Hartley, Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz, and Lois Dodd. After studying at Smith College and Parsons School of Design in New York and Paris, the artist attended the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 1996 and received an MFA at The School of Visual Arts in New York City in 1998. Spence’s work first received critical attention for a group of drawings presented at The Chateau Marmont in Los Angeles (1997); Paper Magazine, who covered the show, featured Spence on their pages many times thereafter. Reviews of her work have appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Frieze, Artcritical, The Brooklyn Rail, Two Coats of Paint, and other publications. Solo exhibitions of Spence’s work have taken place at Colin De Land’s American Fine Arts, New York, NY; The Grazer Kuntzverein, Austria; Kunsthaus Glarus, Switzerland; NeueHouse, New York, Cathouse Proper, Brooklyn, NY; The Helen Day, Stowe, VT; Maya Frodeman Gallery (formerly Tayloe Piggott Gallery), Jackson Hole, WY; Arusha Gallery, London and Bruton, UK; and Sears Peyton Gallery, New York, NY. She is a frequent exhibitor with David Dixon’s exhibition space Cathouse Proper, formerly Cathouse FUNeral, Brooklyn (2014 - present). Spence’s work can be found in collections throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe. Her work is included in the archives of Colin De Land American Fine Arts Gallery, held at The Smithsonian Archives of American Art and Bard College Library. Recently her work was on view at the Zillman Museum University of Maine (2020) and The Center for Maine Contemporary Art Biennial (2019). Spence lives and works in New York and Vermont.
Suzy Spence
For the last nearly thirty years, the tradition of equestrian painting has been a fertile field of investigation and play for painter Suzy Spence. Finding artistic and conceptual inspiration in its aesthetics, metaphor, and cultural commentary, Spence creates paintings that touch on 18th-century society portraiture, political imagery, equestrian sporting paintings, and contemporary fashion photography. In her sweeping, intrepid brushstrokes, Spence conjures an air of female defiance and haughty sensitivities that feel alive and ghostly all at once.