Untitled 1 1990

Curator: I'm immediately struck by the muted palette, that subdued red and dusky blue, it feels almost melancholic. Editor: That's interesting. What we're looking at here is Suzan Frecon's "Untitled 1," from 1990. It’s a work on paper, primarily watercolor. For me, it’s less melancholic, more about reduction, paring down to fundamental forms and relationships. The juxtaposition of colors and shapes suggests a kind of deliberate, almost assertive simplicity. Curator: Assertive, huh? To me, there's a vulnerability in the edges, how they’re uneven and raw. That touch of bare paper peeking through—it whispers, doesn’t shout. There's a sort of humble confidence, though. You know, it's okay to not be perfect. The kind of inner peace that comes from sitting and breathing deeply and observing the bare minimum. Editor: Absolutely, that imperfect quality and sense of reduction in abstraction, moves Frecon away from purely formal concerns and situates her within a broader dialogue about Minimalism. These works resisted the macho, often exclusionary aesthetics of the time by insisting on subtle gestures. This simplicity is a quiet act of rebellion. What is not represented, or aggressively performed is often just as telling. Curator: And it is almost soothing in this era, everything is just a little bit too much, the opposite of the loud obnoxious noise all the time. It's funny how reducing things actually feels really courageous nowadays. What strikes you about Frecon as an artist? Editor: I find Frecon compelling because her practice avoids easy categorization. Is she a painter? A sculptor? She embraces both—it’s as if she sees those boundaries as inherently porous. And this reminds me of so many gender discussions; for a really long time, certain bodies and practices got pushed out, deemed “too feminine” or "craftlike" because those spaces were seen as inherently less than. The fact that Frecon embraced forms across artmaking feels radically open. Curator: It is so inspiring. This work—simple as it is—has layers and layers once you pause and allow for deeper reflection. It has almost, that is that a smile it throws? Is there wit hiding in there? I like this a lot. Editor: Right? It just goes to show that apparent simplicity can hold profound complexity, both in its form and its place in a lineage of radical artists working towards abstraction as liberation.