Susan Vecsey creates abstractions that are rooted in human perception. Having settled comfortably on the edge of phantasm and pure form, Vecsey is always working towards the creation of a universal image. Interested in bringing her compositions down to their essence, she works through her own memory of different topographies she has experienced by considering the continuously shifting effects of light, water, and air on our impressions of place. The result is soft, glowing abstractions which feel like peaceful meditations.
Minimal and captivating, these universal images illuminate how color, sfumato, and material can remind each viewer of an ethereal place, memory, or dream. Vecsey’s work is seamless and fluid, but there is a calculated structure behind each blanket of color. The forms begin with the landscapes that live in her memory, sans photograph, but are pared down to their essence. Once Vecsey is in the studio, she works on color studies which inform the hues and forms of her larger works until she decides on a group of colors that naturally “lock together” based on her precise vision. “The paintings reflect harmony in color and composition, and hopefully result in a peacefulness and balance, which is not just emotional,” Vecsey states, “It’s a physical thing that relates to painting and what painting is about for me.”
Vecsey adapts the Color Field technique of pouring her meticulously considered and created hues onto the surface of a coarse Belgian linen, her longtime chosen canvas. Describing her distinctive process as “working like a watercolorist with liquefied oil paint,” this medium is similarly unforgiving as the viscous paint saturates her canvas, building on and altering the colors she previously laid upon the canvas. Pouring once a day on each work in progress, Vecsey is always considerate of the effects of her tonal colors on the rich surface of her works, which underscore the beauty of her media. This exhibition also presents a new iteration of Vecsey’s particular visual language with her collage works. Consisting of the same materials and conceptual approach, these works are equally soft and striking while simultaneously elevating her chosen media. The linen edges of each portion of the works are gently frayed, yet demonstrate Vecsey’s ability to use restraint in both form and color while creating poignant windows into memory and perception.
Within each work. form and color unite to suggest the atmospheric effects of dusk on a lush hillside, the soft curve of a shore, the subtle slope of a hillside, or the light of the sun sinking into the horizon, each universally and subconsciously understood. Art historian and critic Phyllis Tuchman has described Vecsey’s work as “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, reveries. You’re revisiting sites of pleasure and wonderment.” This evocative quality makes Vecsey’s work resonate deeply with viewers, inviting them to reflect on their own experiences and emotions surrounding place.
Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1971, Susan Vecsey earned her BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, and her MFA from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture. Vecsey’s work is widely held in both public and private collections, including the Parrish Art Museum, Water Mill, New York, the Nassau County Museum, Roslyn, New York, the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC, and Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton, NY. In 2012, Vecsey was a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome. Vecsey’s work was featured in Guild Hall Museum’s 2014 Selections from the Permanent Collection curated by Christina Strassfield. In 2024, Vecsey was a visiting artist at La Maison de Simon, near Giverny, France. In recent years, the distinguished design dealers, Lee Jofa and Brunschwig & Fils, have used several of her paintings in advertising campaigns. Vecsey has been featured in magazines such as Architectural Digest, Hamptons Magazine and Veranda. Susan Vecsey currently lives and works between New York City and East Hampton, New York.