SUZANNE CAPORAEL
25 JUNE — 8 AUGUST 2020
SUZANNE CAPORAEL
TAYLOE PIGGOTT GALLERY 62 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET JACKSON HOLE WYOMING TEL 307 733 0555 TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM
749 (bank), 2018 Oil on linen 60 x 84 in.
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739 (hunt), 2018 Oil on linen 48 x 36 in.
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729 (Niagra scow), 2017 Oil on linen 54 x 78 in.
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742 (leer), 2019 Oil on linen 54 x 42 in.
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741 (march), 2018 Oil on linen 54 x 42 inches
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738 (book), 2018 Oil on linen 30 x 22 in.
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735 (honey), 2018 Oil on linen 30 x 20 in.
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736 (room), 2018 Oil on linen 30 x 20 in.
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734 (court), 2018 Oil on linen 48 x 36 in.
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737 (paper), 2018 Oil on linen 30 x 22 in.
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747 (blue, 3), 2018 Oil on linen 66 x 48 in.
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JJ, 2018
Etching, relief, collage 24 x 16 in.
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dust [1/12], 2019
Relief, hand painting, collage, chine collĂŠ 16 x 12 in.
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lead [1/12], 2019
Relief, hand painting, collage, chine collĂŠ 16 x 12 in.
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Origins of the Elements, 2019 Hand painting, lithography, etching 29 x 46 in.
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Installation at Tayloe Piggott Gallery
Suzanne Caporael Painter Suzanne Caporael is preoccupied with scientific subject matter, basing her sublime abstract paintings on methodical research of the natural world. Suzanne Caporael was born in New York in August, 1949. The artist’s father, a civil engineer, moved the family around the United States until settling in California in the mid- sixties. As a child, she trained as a Flamenco dancer, but was reluctant to take the stage. Caporael has been painting “since memory,” and her childhood paintings often featured apparitions of the Virgin Mary. Especially interested in the passage of time and how it manifests in nature, Caporael attempts to distill universal truths through careful observation of areas of convergence and transformation, like estuaries or rings of trees. As once described in a New York Times review, “you might say that if natural laws were to express themselves through paint, something akin to her work could result.” Caporael’s shapes feel intensely deliberate and rigorously rendered. Some works are reminiscent of vessels, whereas another brings to mind a seascape. The economy of form and refined paint application suggests a sense of order that bears contemplation and cerebral discipline, yet allows for freedom of interpretation and mood. The shadowy forms communicate something primal and quiet. Caporael’s work hearkens to Jean Arp, who felt that his forms were not abstractions but the introduction or evolution of what he called “concretions.” In the same way, Caporael’s work feels natural and inevitable. A 2020 Guggenheim Fellow, the artist earned her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the Otis Art Institute in Los Angeles, CA. She had her first show at thirty-five when then-Director Paul Schimmel debuted her work at the Newport Harbor Art Museum (now the Orange County Museum of Art). She was awarded a National Endowment grant in painting in 1986, and (anecdotally) spent the money on a washer-dryer set. Caporael has taught as a visiting professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara,
and the San Francisco Art Institute. In 2009 she was a guest artist-inresidence at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation. The artist’s prints are published in collaboration with Tandem Press in Madison, WI. Suzanne Caporael’s work is in the collections of The Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, PA; the Legion of Honor: Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, CA; the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; the High Museum of Art, Atlanta, GA; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; the Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Santa Barbara, CA; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, CA; and The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY; among others. Until moving to New York in 1999, Caporael lived in rural California. The artist currently lives and works in Lakefield, Connecticut, with her husband, novelist Bruce Murkoff.
Installation at Tayloe Piggott Gallery
This catalog complements Suzanne Caporael’s Exhibition at Tayloe Piggott Gallery © 2020 All Rights Reserved
62 SOUTH GLENWOOD STREET JACKSON HOLE, WYOMING TEL 307 733 0555 TAYLOEPIGGOTTGALLERY.COM