Berry Campbell is pleased to announce an exhibition of paintings by Susan Vecsey and James Walsh.  The opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 5 from 6 to 8 pm.

Susan Vecsey, who works in the traditions of Color Field and Tonalist painting, has moved in the direction of Minimalism in her current work.  While her compositions are seemingly simple, there is a well-thought-out process for each painting, including preparatory charcoal drawings with calculated geometries and numerous color studies in search of precise color combinations. The size and shape of each canvas are long considered.  The materials, the quality of the pigment, and the texture of the linen are just as important as the composition.  Paint is applied through pouring or staining.  Vecsey states, "With poured paint, timing is everything, and it is important to be decisive with it and also ready to accept or reject the unexpected." Her abstract paintings convey certain emotions and references to nature through their shapes and colors, becoming vehicles for us to access our own memories and experiences.

Susan Vecsey was born in Somerville, New Jersey, and lives and works in New York City and East Hampton, New York.  She earned her Bachelor of Arts from Barnard College, Columbia University, New York and her Masters of Fine Art from the New York Studio School of Drawing, Painting, and Sculpture, studying under Graham Nickson.  In 2012, she was a Visiting Artist at the American Academy in Rome.  Vecsey’s work is widely held in public and private collections. Recently Guild Hall Museum, East Hampton acquired White Main Beach, 2012 for its permanent collection. 

An abstract painter who has been an active member of the New York art scene since the early 1980s, James Walsh follows in the modernist tradition of Pollock in using art to reveal its own properties. Paint is the medium he relentlessly explores, seeking its limits and what it can express.  The results of his inquiry are spectacularly wide ranging.  Experimenting with innovative acrylic formulas, he uses paint in entirely new ways.  In his paintings, large masses of pigment project outward from the surface of the canvas, creating unusual shape formations in high relief. In some, the paint is sculptural and three-dimensional, while in others, it rises from richly treated surfaces in the Color Field mode, as if allowed to buckle of its own accord or lift upward at the edges of giant brushstrokes. Although Walsh makes these compositional choices, the spontaneous appearance gives his paintings a feeling of the accidental, revealing that the paint has its own presence.

Born in Newark, New Jersey, James Walsh received his Bachelor of Fine Arts from Rutgers University and his Masters of Fine Art from Syracuse University.  Walsh has had numerous individual and group shows and is represented in numerous museum collections including the Edmonton Art Gallery, Alberta, Canada; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York; the Mendel Art Gallery, Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada; and the Portland Art Museum, Oregon.

Susan Vecsey and James Walsh are represented by Berry Campbell.  The exhibition will run through Thursday, July 3, 2014.  Berry Campbell is located in the heart of Chelsea at 530 W 24th Street on the ground floor.  Gallery hours are Tuesday through Saturday, 10:00 am to 6:00 pm or by appointment.

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