Southampton, NY SUSAN GROSSMAN Within the City
In a new show at MM Fine Art in Southampton, New York, artist Susan Grossman brings her views of New York City to life through her exceptional charcoal and pastel works on paper.
Grossman, who lives in the Gowanus neighborhood of Brooklyn in New York City, says the city speaks to her as she works, plays and lives her life in one of the famous metropolises on the planet. And everywhere she looks is a new drawing, usually a large one, too. “I just love making these big pictures, because you can almost feel like you’re walking into them,” she says. “I draw with my hands because I love the movement. I don’t use any sort of projection, so it really frees me to do the drawings however I like, even if I want to capture that quirkiness I love so much.”
The artist will frequently put some music on an old iPod—Ani DiFranco, Joni Mitchell, John Mellencamp or even new classical jazz—and just tune into the wavelength of the paper and her materials. “I love music that makes me realize how much I love poetry,” she adds. “I like working off that energy.”
Works in the show include charcoal and pastel pieces such as Mirage, which shows a black-and-white world reflected onto itself from the glass windows of a building, and Gleaming, a work of profound moodiness that really captures the wetness and chilliness that comes with an afternoon thunderstorm in the city.
“I find Susan’s work extremely evocative. Her skies and wet nighttime scenes in particular are a little wistful, sometimes lonely, but also optimistic,” says collector Alison Haimes. “She observes and re-creates. Looking into one of her works is like expanding into another universe.”
For Catherine McCormick, director and partner of MM Fine Art, Grossman’s work shares its qualities with other mediums and forms of entertainment. “There is an intriguing cinematic quality to Susan Grossman’s
work. It begins with the minimal palette of black, white and gray that calls to mind classic film noir, which when joined with a strong and energetic composition, creates a heighted sense of drama,” she says. “Grossman’s subtle use of color is used as a story line and directs the viewer’s eye. A work such as Arrival could be a film still from a classic Hitchcock film, as the car speeds into the barren East End landscape, or in Getaway, as two boys take off running down a city street, Grossman captures the moment right before something is about to happen or has just happened.”