Blackbird Rook presents Susan Metrican
in Foundations, 23.01 - 14.02
Susan Metrican is an artist living and working in Fairfield, IA via Boston, NYC, Toronto, and Bangkok. Metrican received an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014 and Shandaken: Storm King in 2022.
I am drawn to images and objects that resonate across seemingly disparate cultures and time periods. As a Thai American raised mostly in the midwest, I am interested in imagery that is “culturally familiar” through its connection to folktales and shared traditions, particularly imagery that evokes a reverence for rural life.
The work acknowledges motifs that have been translated across multiple formats; textiles, costumes, theater, architecture, and small useful objects which allow the symbols, characters and stories to connect and continue “traveling” through time and space. Within this context, my work attempts to engage with traditions of making and exchange through the construction of animal and nature motif paintings that have the appearance of being “well-worn” or “inherited.”
I consider the movement of interpreted ideas onto various forms across national borders and throughout history, and their shape-shifting reanimation as they introduce new modes of being. The three-dimensional quality of my paintings address this notion of multiplicity, and a fluid approach to form, flatness, and image becomes necessary.
Metrican’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions nationally; most recently at Framingham State University (MA), Headstone Gallery (NY), The Hole (NY), LaiSun Keane (MA), Rivalry Projects (NY), MassArt X SoWa (MA), Tracey Morgan Gallery (NC), LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University (NY), Maharishi University (IA), SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017 (NY), Able Baker Contemporary (ME), GRIN Contemporary (RI), Proof Gallery (MA), Boston Center for the Arts (MA), Field Projects (NY), Knockdown Center (NY), and Gallery Protocol (FL). Metrican has an artist edition with Drawer NYC (NY), and has been featured in ART MAZE Mag, Cream City Review and Peripheries Journal. She is one of four founding members of kijidome, an experimental project space and collaborative in Boston, MA (2013-2017). From 2014-2022, she was the Curator at the Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University. She is currently Director of the Wege Gallery and Assistant Professor in the Art Department at Maharishi International University (IA).
