Lawrence Markey Inc.

Suzan Frecon watercolors

at Lawrence Markey
San Antonio, TX

Part I of II: May 20—June 11, 2021
Part II of II: June 17—July 9, 2021.

open by appointmnet


Lawrence Markey is pleased to announce a two part exhibition of watercolors by Suzan Frecon. The initial selection of watercolors examines a recurring compositional motif, recalling cathedral traditions in architecture, that continues in Frecon’s practice. The selection of watercolors in part two exemplify the bold visual ambiguity permeating Suzan Frecon’s work; as Frecon herself said, “landscape, architecture, human beings and their consciousness: it is all there, but it’s not a depiction.”

This will be Suzan Frecon’s tenth solo exhibition at Lawrence Markey, and her first at our Grayson Street location.

Suzan Frecon said in conversation with Jennifer Samet (Hyperallergic, November 21, 2020):

“In 1989, there was a show of Hilma af Klint’s work at [MoMA] PS1. The paintings really spoke to me. They were completely abstract. I didn’t know anything about spirituality. I began structuring my work with horizontals and verticals. I credit Hilma af Klint’s late abstract paintings for giving me that courage. I admired the fact that she was a mathematician, and I saw some asymmetry in her work.
 
I knew I wanted to work with asymmetry. I wanted to set up balances, imbalances, and dissonances. I tried working with numbers. But they had to be visual numbers; I didn’t want theory. I was trying to figure out the mathematics that went into cathedrals, but I never could. It is secret. I was impacted by music, and I read the book Mathematics and the Divine. I started experimenting and then looking, to see what worked, what held the painting.”

Suzan Frecon was born in Mexico, Pennsylvania. Following a degree in Fine Arts at Pennsylvania State University in 1963, she spent three years at the École Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris, France. In 2008, Frecon’s work was the subject of a major solo exhibition at The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas, form, color, illumination: Suzan Frecon painting, which traveled to the Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland. She was included in the 2010 Whitney Biennial, and her works are represented in the permanent collections of prominent institutions, including the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; The Menil Collection, Houston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Frecon lives and works in New York.

A fully illustrated publication will accompany the exhibition.

The gallery is located in the Full Goods building at Pearl. Suite 104 is up a few stairs (ramp access available), on the breezeway that runs parallel to E. Grayson Street.

Please contact Sandra Weatherhead to request further information or images: 210-228-9966 or info@lawrencemarkey.com