Artist Bio & Statement
Katharine Suchan (b. 1997, Little Rock, AR) is on track to receive her MFA from the Tyler School of Art and Architecture May 2024. Her solo show The Light That Does Not Touch Us just concluded at Temple Contemporary (Philadelphia, PA). Recent exhibitions include the group shows How long does it take for a peacock to die? at Atelier Gallery (Philadelphia, PA) ROMA at Stella Elkins (Philadelphia, PA) and poxoes at Gallery of Art (Rome, Italy).
She received her BFA in Painting from the Kansas City Art Institute in 2020. Her work has been shown in Kansas City, New York, Minnesota, Rome, and Philadelphia and featured in New American Paintings Issue No. 160.
Rivers, sidewalks, and desire paths guide us into unexpected pockets that transport us to other worlds. In my work, these places become simultaneously compressed and expanded. They bridge sites, time, and objects that are visited-imagined-theatrical-psychological. My practice draws from the logic of fairytales, invention, and wonder to excavate landscape’s in/stability.
My paintings and drawings are analogies depicting everyday icons. Historic monuments and flora and fauna join with others imagined, like witches, peering eyes, and unicorns. I explore the possibilities of association through the juxtaposition of forms that are of cultural and personal significance. Narrative is revealed, and then unravels into dreamlike familiarities.
Color acts as a lens through which these worlds divulge, leaving traces of feelings far off. Analogous palettes capture emotional sensation and highlight shifts in season, mood, and temperature. Non-traditional perspectives inspire questions about how a painting functions, and makes visible the un-assumed. Marks distinguish form, and patterns create an energetic pulse throughout the environment. To navigate through the work is to lose oneself on the journey and to see what unfolds between the space and place of here and there, then and now.
The work is to celebrate life, romance, and wonder, to build relationships between time, people and material, and to make dusk jealous.