Susan Vecsey

New York-based artist Susan Vecsey paints abstractions that are rooted in perception. Minimal and captivating, these universal images illuminate how color, sfumasto, and material can remind each viewer of an ethereal place, memory, or dream. Though closely resembling Color Field paintings, Vecsey’s work also presents what feel like peaceful meditations on landscapes.
 
Vecsey’s work appears seamless and fluid, there is a calculated structure behind each blanket of color. The shapes come from landscapes she has seen and that live in her memory, sans photograph. Once Vecsey is in the studio it really becomes a process of a lot of color studies and determining scale in terms of how the shapes are sitting within the square of the canvas. The real joy of the work for her is layering the color to a saturated effect to create a beautiful surface. “I’m really obsessed with the surface of the painting,” she says. Often simplifying what she sees, Vecsey pursues restraint in form and color. Within each work, the shapes and colors unite to suggest the light of the sun sinking into the horizon, the subtle slope of a hillside, or the curve of a riverbed- all embodying the elusive beauty of nature.
 
Over time, Vecsey’s work has become more minimalist in color and composition. “I’m interested in  bringing the composition down to its essence,” she says. Through many color studies she finally decides on a group of four or five colors that “lock together,” and then looks for a satisfying harmony and balance. “The paintings reflect harmony in color and composition, and hopefully result in a peacefulness and balance, which is not just emotional, it’s a physical thing that relates to painting and what painting and what painting is about for me.”  
 
Born in Somerville, New Jersey, in 1971, Susan Vecsey currently lives and works in New York City as well as East Hampton, New York. She 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 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.