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FADING LANDSCAPE: BY SUZY SPENCE

Past viewing_room
1 Apr - 8 May 2022
  • FADING LANDSCAPE

    BY SUZY SPENCE
  • "My landscape paintings have always been a fantasy space for me, only loosely based in truth. I spend time observing nature like a plein air painter would, however I return to the studio not to record what I’ve seen, but to indulge my imagination." 

    -Suzy Spence, in conversation with Caroline Buhe

    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
    • Suzy Spence, Pink Vest, 2020
      Suzy Spence, Pink Vest, 2020
    • Suzy Spence, Royal Ascot (flowers), 2021
      Suzy Spence, Royal Ascot (flowers), 2021
    • Suzy Spence, Unbuttoned, 2020
      Suzy Spence, Unbuttoned, 2020
    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
  • Fading Landscape, an exhibition of paintings by American artist Suzy Spence, presents a range of work completed over the last two years, from near-monumental-scale landscapes on canvas to intimate works on paper and painterly portraiture. Additionally, the exhibition introduces the artist’s hand-printed, equestrian neo-toile wallpaper, produced this year in collaboration with historic Red Disk Studios in Buffalo, New York.

     

    Presented in two rooms in the gallery’s main space, the exhibition probes the history of the domestic space, a theme running throughout Suzy Spence’s work, with wild, galloping landscapes offering a window looking out-of- doors. Billowing clouds puff out over a gestural, almost saccharine blue-and-ochre landscape in Cloud Gallop, as two riders nearly indistinguishable from the field of golden wildflowers race across the expanse. Back indoors, with a nod to equestrian portraiture, another Spence motif, Royal Ascot (flowers) is emblazoned with a massive floral headpiece and gauzy gown that could feel equally at home in a baroque masterpiece (Charles le Brun’s Louis XIV, e.g.) or on the runway of an Alexander McQueen show. Spence’s brushstrokes have the quick confidence fitting for such a juxtaposition; New York school, but make it history. 
    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
    • Suzy Spence, Fading Landscape, 2021
      Suzy Spence, Fading Landscape, 2021
    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
    • Fading Landscape (Double Peter), 2021 Acrylic on canvas 82 x 67 inches
      Fading Landscape (Double Peter), 2021
      Acrylic on canvas
      82 x 67 inches
    • Suzy Spence, Fading Landscape (Dodge Road study), 2022
      Suzy Spence, Fading Landscape (Dodge Road study), 2022
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
  • Spence has been investigating the tropes and tradition of the English hunting scene since her residency at Skowhegan in 1996. The early nineteen-nineties marked a dark period for painting in American art; painters were largely outré, the taste was for social commentary and conceptual art. Originally, she says, “I was treating it as a failed painting, as a conversation about class and taste. But the paintings themselves were kind of beautiful.” Today, she’s abandoned that sense of irony. “I’m very invested in my subject matter," she says, “I'm owning it.” 

     

    In owning, even honoring, her subject matter, certain things have shifted in her artistic process. “I’ve given myself the permission to work much faster, and to finish things in just a couple of sittings,” she says. “Even a large piece, and that was something I’ve always felt obligated to do—to spend much time with work. And I don’t feel that way anymore. I often feel my work is much better if I just let go sooner. That’s been a big shift for me.”
    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
    • Cloud Gallop, 2021 Acrylic on canvas 60 x 84 inches
      Cloud Gallop, 2021
      Acrylic on canvas
      60 x 84 inches
      Sold
    • Screen Shot 2022 01 12 At 3 51 31 Pm
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
    • Suzy Spence, Clouds (horse, rider, hound), 2021
      Suzy Spence, Clouds (horse, rider, hound), 2021
    • Suzy Spence, Horse and Cloud, 2021
      Suzy Spence, Horse and Cloud, 2021
    • Winter Paddock, 2021 Acrylic and flashe on panel 22 x 30 inches Framed dimensions 23 1/4 x 31 1/4 inches
      Winter Paddock, 2021
      Acrylic and flashe on panel
      22 x 30 inches
      Framed dimensions 23 1/4 x 31 1/4 inches
      Sold
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
  • “The work has become more lyrical. If I had used that word ten or twenty years ago to describe my work, I would have said, ‘What are you doing, Suzy? That is so cheesy.’ But it’s really true. The work feels more poetic and more lyrical. It’s very liberating, because I started with the traditional English hunt scene as the basis of the work, and I’ve been able to let go of that. I’ve held on in some places to the little scraps, so that it’s pinned down in places to those tropes from the traditional English hunting scenes, but I’m really messing with the boundaries that I set up.”
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
    • Suzy Spence, Hunt Fantasia, 2019
      Suzy Spence, Hunt Fantasia, 2019
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
  •  

    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
    • Suzy Spence, Pink Drag Hunt, 2022
      Suzy Spence, Pink Drag Hunt, 2022
    • Pink Fade, 2022 Flashe on paper 22 x 30 inches Framed dimensions 26 1/2 x 34 inches
      Pink Fade, 2022
      Flashe on paper
      22 x 30 inches
      Framed dimensions 26 1/2 x 34 inches
      Sold
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
  • Those boundaries include the way we think about art and artist’s projects. Spence’s wallpaper, handmade silkscreens based on the artist’s paintings, came about following a brilliant exhibition at the Whitney Museum in 2010, Charles Burchfield, curated by Robert Gober. Burchfield had a stint as a wallpaper designer in Buffalo, N.Y., and Spence loved the way the paper looked with his work. The museum walls were transformed into a living interior. She worked with the modern-day version of Burchfield’s company, which produces a bespoke, handmade product down to the paint, which is mixed locally in Buffalo. 
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
    • Widow, 2017 Flashe on paper 24 x 18 inches Frame dimensions 27 x 21 inches
      Widow, 2017
      Flashe on paper
      24 x 18 inches
      Frame dimensions 27 x 21 inches
    • Suzy Spence, Blue Hill (Blue Chase), 2021
      Suzy Spence, Blue Hill (Blue Chase), 2021
    • Suzy Spence, Widow with Dotted Veil, 2017
      Suzy Spence, Widow with Dotted Veil, 2017
    • Screen Shot 2022 04 12 At 1 53 34 Pm
  • Spence is the child of New Yorkers who moved to Maine in the 70s. She is the daughter of painter...
    Spence is the child of New Yorkers who moved to Maine in the 70s. She is the daughter of painter Marcia Stremlau, who took her daughter along with her to sketch the Maine landscapes. Spence identifies stylistically with the vernacular of Maine artists like Marsden Hartley, Fairfield Porter, Alex Katz, and Lois Dodd. She completed a residency at Skowhegan, received her BFA from Parsons School of Design and her MFA at the School of Visual Arts. Suzy Spence’s work has been covered by The New York Times, Frieze Magazine, Esquire Magazine, Paper Magazine, The New Yorker, and The Independent. She has received fellowships and awards from the New York Foundation for the Arts, Vermont Studio Center, and Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture. 
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