Susan Vecsey: Day and Night

 By Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D. 

 

An artist working in the Color Field tradition, Susan Vecsey merges art and nature in lyrically mesmerizing and elegant abstract paintings, rendered in a meticulous, labor-intensive method. Her fifth exhibition at Berry Campbell is titled Day and Night. Featuring more strongly hued works than in the past, Vecsey captures an essential mystery of light; the particular moments of brightening and fading are so minimally perceptible as to be archetypal images that stretch out time so that we become self-reflectively aware of ourselves in relation to the natural world. 

 

Vecsey, born in Somerville, New Jersey, became familiar with art and artists at a young age, and one of her first art experiences was a field trip with her elementary school class in Franklin Lakes, New Jersey, to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. When the curator told the class that there were just a few women among the Impressionists, Vecsey was already thinking of becoming an artist. She worried that if women weren’t allowed in the painting circle, maybe she should sign her works with an “S” instead of her full name to hide her gender. Her childhood anxiety conveys her early ambition but, of course, today she signs her full name on the back of her canvases.

 

 

 

Essay and Biography by Lisa N. Peters, Ph.D. 

Designed by Mark Robinson 

Published by Berry Campbell

Printed by Meridian, Rhode Island