Kathryn Markel Fine Arts is pleased to announce an exhibition of recent paintings by Susan Mastrangelo, The Beat Goes On. This will be her first solo exhibition with the gallery and will take place in The Pocket Gallery at 179 10th Avenue. An opening reception will be held on June 26th from 6-8pm.
Mastrangelo’s paintings are boldly sculptural, utilizing a variety of media to produce their abstract, biomorphic forms. Throughout her career, Mastrangelo’s oeuvre has shifted between abstraction and figuration and the most recent works marry the two. These paintings, while fully abstract, reference the body and its connection to making. Each canvas is a riot of color and texture as bold, bright hues intersect patterned textiles and loops of braided cords.
Her assemblage-like paintings begin by creating a lyrical abstraction with upholstery cord. These looping shapes create a rhythm within the paintings as they swirl and meander through her world of pattern and color. Net-like, knitted yarn stretches over passages and twists around forms. Repetition and pattern appear throughout each canvas furthering the energy and rhythm that hums within each.
Craft takes center stage in these works through large swaths of knitting. Mastrangelo explains the importance of this medium, “My grandmother taught me to knit, and consequently, the act of knitting has always brought me great comfort. The repetitive act of building one stitch upon another seems to synchronize with the beating of my own heart while I imagine it working to create a protective tissue inducing an internal healing process.” Working meditatively and intuitively through repeated motions and layered processes, she composes tender, emotive scenes.
Susan Mastrangelo is based in New York City and has shown nationally and internationally. She studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, the New York Studio School, and received her MFA from Boston University under the tutelage of Philip Guston. She is a recipient of a Mercedes Matter Award, a Visiting Artist Rockwell Grant and two grants from the Pollock Krasner Foundation. She has been a visiting artist at the American Academy in Rome, a guest at Civitella Raneri, and a resident at Yaddo, The Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, The Ragdale Foundation, The Triangle Workshop (as a student of Anthony Caro), and the Tyrone Guthrie Center in Ireland. Museum shows include the Islip Art Museum, NY; and The City Museum of Neuotting, DE.