Winston Wächter Fine Art is pleased to announce the opening of Susan Dory: New Paintings. In this, her first solo show at Winston Wächter, Dory investigates the passage of time and the peculiarities of memory.

There is a particular tension at the heart of Susan Dory’s abstract canvases. Though she explores ideas of repetition, spareness and restraint, her minimalist interests are quickly overwhelmed by her maximalist desires. She creates complexity through the repetition of simple forms, as well as through the consideration of the negative spaces they create. Slowly built up, layer upon layer, the viewer is drawn into her incredibly plastic, nearly topographical surfaces. For her, the layering process represents moments in time, and creates a visual document of her daily painting.

Behind this meticulously executed process there is Dory’s palette, and her fervent belief in the power and importance of color in structuring the memories of people, places and particular times in her life. She believes that colors evoke personal memories akin to the effects of olfactory memory. Though a specific shade of green may recall a new golfing outfit given to Dory as a child, a mother’s bribe to encourage enthusiasm for lessons, it can and will stir up entirely different memories for the viewer. Each painting represents a collage of these distinct memories, the sentimental history of one’s private life. The touches of potentially dozens of different colors in each canvas encourage the viewer to consider their own personal associations, a process that, like Dory’s technique, slowly reveals itself through meditative periods of looking.

Please join us for an opening reception for the artist on Wednesday, January 10, 2006, 6-8pm. For further information, please contact Amanda Snyder at 212-327-2526.