What Comes Out of Discord, for Susanna Coffey ?
Joseph Maceda
Susanna
Coffey’s latest exhibition at the Tibor de Nagy Gallery is apparently about
dissonance – as evidenced by the first painting, “Self Portrait (Eris),” the
title of which refers to the Greek goddess of discord. Coffey’s self-portraits
seem at odds with themselves, the gallery, and the artist, who has grown too
intimate with her viewers. In this collection of new paintings, Coffey may be
attempting to reinvent the self-reflexive soulful image she has mastered in the
last decade, or she may be admitting she has tired of herself as the subject of
a gaze.
Coffey’s
style has been refined to the point of instant recognition: a centered, focused
and sharply defined face chameleons before a background that could be
foreground. But the facial expressions seem to matter less and less as one
circles the room, as background refuses to be background. Thus, the final
self-portrait, “Split,” seems to reach the height of discord between subject
and the setting of the gaze, as the paint announces itself, dripping and
protruding from a canvas that envelopes its occupant with brightest yellow
light.
In
between “Eris” and “Split,” Coffey struggles to control varying abstractions
and misplaced allusions; “Self Portrait (Hudson halo)” and “Self Portrait
(Flag)” provide local contexts that betray the intimate gaze Coffey has strived
to create. Such identifiable images as a New York Yankee emblem or an American
flag stray from mere psychological feedback and suggest a consensus between
object and subject. Is the viewer’s gaze finally being acknowledged? Or is the
intimacy of the canvas attempting to usurp more power from the viewer?
Either
way, “Split” seems to be Coffey’s white flag to the viewer—and herself—, a
relinquishment of power from her own image to the place it holds in the gallery.
Her final statement signals the bagpiper: numerous and varied painted flowers,
dying and arranged neatly on the concluding wall. What comes out of discord,
only Susanna Coffey knows, making the artist the most powerful person in the
room.
