Suzanna Vangelov 'semblance'

"These seemingly abstract entry points represent the expanse that lies between knowing and unknowing. Vangelov’s portals are not static silhouettes but transitory thresholds to all that exists beyond our tangible realities. They are shadows of the unseen."

Suzanna Vangelov brings a deep embodied knowledge to her practice that ties together her way of being in the world and approach to making. For Vangelov, these modes are indistinguishable. As a mother, maker and daughter of Macedonian/ Australian immigrants, Vangelov’s material application manifests an inherited labour, care and vulnerability. Her generous process offers an intimate introspection of self and ingress into alternate forms of knowledge.

Acknowledging the nomadic movements of her Macedonian ancestors, Vangelov constructs expanded paintings that resist delineated boundary and map psychological and material landscapes. In a rhythmic contortion of mark making that engages her entire physical body, Vangelov motions an inner life to the surface. The unassuming colourations of her work evoke a familiar yet unidentifiable feeling – they are inviting spaces to explore. Each work holds within it multiple lives and a material memory of the environments that have informed them.

Semblance continues Vangelov’s ritualistic revival of discarded fabrics and experimental pigmentation. The organic patinations in her work emerge from enduring material investigations in varied weather conditions and mineral exposures. Vast stained sheets of canvas are often exposed to days of rain, damp areas of concrete or the bleaching sun. Forms are cut, layered and stitched to create routes, voids and points of entry. Vangelov’s method of production relinquishes control and embraces the unexpected.

Reminiscence of geological formations and geographic divides, the cavernous shapes encountered in Vangelov’s compositions challenge our assumptions of negative space as inactive territory. These seemingly abstract entry points represent the expanse that lies between knowing and unknowing. Vangelov’s portals are not static silhouettes but transitory thresholds to all that exists beyond our tangible realities. They are shadows of the unseen.

— an excerpt from the exhibition essay by Nikki van der Horst