Suellen Rocca “Drawings”

Matthew Marks Gallery 526 W 22nd St.

poster for Suellen Rocca “Drawings”
[Image: Suellen Rocca "Scary Travel" (1981) Colored pencil on paper. 14 x 11 in.]

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Matthew Marks presents Suellen Rocca Drawings, the next exhibition in his gallery at 526 West 22nd Street.

Suellen Rocca is one of the original members of the Hairy Who, the influential group of six Chicago artists who exhibited together for five years in the 1960s. This show, the first to concentrate on Rocca’s works on paper, presents thirty drawings she made between 1981 and 2017. Building on the unique graphic vocabulary and innovative compositions of her 1960s work, these drawings represent a turn toward imagery she describes as “more internal.” Animals, trees, and unclassifiable creatures are placed in densely patterned settings that carry a genuine emotional charge.

The exhibition is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. In the essay, Cat Kron notes Rocca’s “increased attention to the unconscious,” tracing parallels between the artist’s “anxious imaginings” and the automatic drawing of the Surrealists. As Rocca puts it, “I just begin, and the drawing is a journey between me and the marks on the paper.”

Suellen Rocca was born in Chicago in 1943 and currently lives in Romeoville, Illinois. Shortly after graduating from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1964, she began showing her paintings, drawings, and sculptures alongside those of her fellow Hairy Who members. The group’s exhibitions drew national and international attention and went on to influence generations of artists. In 2016, Matthew Marks Gallery presented Rocca’s first one-person exhibition in New York, “Suellen Rocca: Bare Shouldered Beauty, Works from 1965 to 1969.” Her work will be featured in the exhibition “Hairy Who? 1966–1969”, the first major survey of the group’s work, which opens at the Art Institute of Chicago on September 26.

Media

Schedule

from September 14, 2018 to October 27, 2018

Opening Reception on 2018-09-13 from 18:00 to 20:00

Artist(s)

Suellen Rocca

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