“Fairy tales are full of impossible tasks.” This is the opening line to a poem by A.E. Stallings called “Fairy-tale Logic.” Katharine Suchan is inspired by the logic of fairy tales, but unlike the story posited by Stallings, what she asks of the viewer is far from impossible. Through paintings of imagined and obscured landscapes, Suchan encourages the viewer to envision their own narrative. Traveling around the scene, discovering monuments like the Gateway Arch in St. Louis, flora and fauna, unicorns, and skeletons, a story is revealed, but it is not one which Suchan created. Rather she makes visible the unassumed and invites the viewer to become lost in the work.
Katharine Suchan Written by Jackie Streker
i have considered the lilies (ABOVE)
Flashe on ACM. Detail. Photo Credit: Neighboring States
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The Light That Does Not Touch Us (TOP CENTER)
Installation View. Flashe on ACM.
Suchan skillfully plays with perspective and scale. Using collage methodology, she simultaneously flattens a multi-dimensional landscape to a single plane and at the same time acknowledges that it expands far beyond the boundaries of her canvas. Paintings like i have considered the lilies and gateway to the isle of horns are portals to a new world. But these portals aren’t easy to enter. Employing analogous color palettes, Suchan suggests a lens between painting and viewer. These lenses color our perception and remind us that we must traverse time and space to embody her world. Suchan’s choice of spatial construction and colored environments from green to pink considers the traditional “blue of distance” and imbues each painting with a different emotion. We are invited into her world, but Suchan reminds us that we come with our own baggage. Our prejudices, like the color she applies, tint the landscape and therefore our story. We begin to question what we bring to the table versus what Suchan has offered us and examine the credibility of our story and our memory.
the sea which no one tends
excerpts from the distance
(BOTTOM LEFT)
(BOTTOM RIGHT)
Flashe on ACM. 54” x 39”.
Ink on paper. 12” x 18” (per drawing).
TYLER SCHOOL OF ART AND ARCHITECTURE MASTER OF FINE ARTS CATALOG 2024
KATHARINE SUCHAN
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