Michele Sudduth: Painting in a Social Space
By Glen Helfand
Pinned to the wall in a corner of Michele Sudduth’s spacious Bernal Heights studio is a conglomeration of sources, inspirations, and digital sketches for works to come. This isn’t a surprising thing to see in an artist’s workspace, but here the collection of materials forms a particularly direct parallel to the fully realized paintings leaning against the walls nearby. Arranged in a grid that may not be measured but appears precise is, among other things, a postcard of Ellsworth Kelly’s Study for “Cité”: Brushstrokes Cut into Twenty Squares and Arranged by Chance, a trio of Matisse Blue Nudes, and a photograph of the studio window: an urban view divided into frames and doubled by reflection in the sheen of a tabletop. This collection of images reveals a specific aesthetic that combines elements of figuration, abstraction, an adventurous sense of color, and a trust in chance strategies. It also expresses a reverence for modernism, particularly in its most colorful forms, and a contemporary pluralism that encompasses the totality of these sources.
All this is evident in Sudduth’s large new paintings, which are bold abstractions full of adventurous color combinations—some energetically flirting with chromatic dissonance—and allusions to the figure, along with a sophisticated psychological charge. Against solid backgrounds, she paints layers of forms derived from puzzle pieces, a motif that began in a previous body of work. What were then more recognizable as jigsaw forms have been refined, truncated, and cloned. They are part human and part architecture, a sculptural hybrid in a flattened universe where a sense of dimensionality comes from contrast and an ensuing vibration.
The placement of elements within the composition suggests figures in interaction: some face each other, others overlap. The central forms in a painting called London Bus face off within the proximity of a kiss. The background is painted the solid red associated with the piece’s title, a color that subsumes figures painted a similar shade but camouflaged depending on their vibrancy. Some stand out like beacons when the colors contrast, as is the case with various shades of pale blue and lavender. The use of color is unexpected and exuberant, full of energy and complex interaction.
A larger work titled Mission Boogie expands on the composition, placing the forms on a white background that changes the tonal relationships. The palette of the figures is saturated Necco Wafer, candy-like, intense, earnest. The forms are flipped and repeated, as if seen in a horizontal mirror, except that slight details are altered; it’s not a true reflection but one with the capacity to morph and evolve. Just like life.
Sudduth’s painting fields can be viewed as social spaces where semiabstract figures congregate; the groupings are interactions of color and form. Sometimes the colors seem convivial, at other times more sober. The picture plane could be the site of a party or perhaps a support group. It’s the swath of humanity on that London double-decker, folks in their own reveries or emotionally catching the eye of another. The interactions are open to interpretation, as if the painting were a cubist Rorschach test. We’re all part of this picture.
Glen Helfand
May 2014
Glen Helfand is an independent writer, critic, curator and educator. His writing has appeared in Artforum and at Artforum.com, the San Francisco Bay Guardian, ArtInfo.com, and many other periodicals and exhibition catalogs. .