Suzanne Caporael

Suzanne Caporael's work over the past fifteen years has been characterized by an extensive and discrete series of paintings centering on phenomena of the physical world. Some of these have included depictions of the periodic table, tree rings, elements of pigments, estuaries, melting ice and plant stems. In each case, she began by studying the subject and then developing a visual vocabulary with which to paint it.

Caporael's work focuses on the temporal beauty of nature by examining the relationships between elements, where water meets land, exchange at the very edge between the river and sea, where the tide meets the current and civilizations are born. Caporael investigates the physical world and transforms the intellectual and methodical data she has collected into sublime and resonate images. The genesis of her works is a complex and varied natural phenomenon, to which she brings her own particularly scientific approach; the implied grid system and multicolored amorphous forms suggest data gleaned from such varying sources as text, scientific data, and documentary photographs. As Grace Glueck stated in The New York Times, "...you might say that if natural laws were to express themselves through paint, something akin to her work could result." 

Courtesy of Tandem Press