Ruth Laskey & Suzan Frecon
September 5 – October 25, 2014
2831A Mission Street, San Francisco, CA 94110 USA
Opening reception: Friday, September 5, 6 – 8pm
Gallery hours: Tuesday – Saturday, 11 – 6pm
Ratio 3 is pleased to present two solo exhibitions of new works by Ruth Laskey and Suzan Frecon. Comprised of seven weavings from her ongoing Twill Series, the first exhibition presents Laskey’s most recent investigations into the relationship between canvas, figure, and ground. By integrating image with support, Laskey’s latest weavings utilize the constraints of thread, dye, and loom to produce a rich exploration of form and gesture.
In each of these recent works, Laskey places a bold, monochromatic shape against a gestural linear form. Seen alongside the linear forms, each shape appears static yet moving. As the linear forms bend through the fabric’s warp and weft, suggesting layers and directional shifts, the larger colored forms seem to create a slow displacement.
By focusing on subtle spatial movements and dynamic lines, Laskey’s images have shifted, becoming something between active drawings and meticulous, fixed paintings. Close examination of each form and gesture reveals both a logic in the weavings’ structures and the unmistakable hand of the artist.
The gallery’s second exhibition features eleven new paintings on paper by Suzan Frecon. Over the course of a four-decade career, Frecon has been recognized both for her bold yet understated oil paintings, and for her intuitive watercolors. Employing minimal compositions that contrast richly with their rough-hewn paper grounds, Frecon’s watercolor works provide an intimate look into the artist’s relationship to the physical and textural aspects of her medium and palette.
Ruth Laskey (b. 1975, San Luis Obispo, CA) graduated from the California College of the Arts with a BFA in 1999 and an MFA in 2005. Laskey’s work will be included in Fiber: Sculpture 1960-present, which opens at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston in October, 2014 and travels to the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, and Des Moines Art Center, Iowa. Laskey has exhibited at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive; David Zwirner, New York; Stephen Friedman Gallery, London; Douglas F. Cooley Memorial Art Gallery, Reed College, Portland; The Approach, London; Misako & Rosen, Tokyo; and the Oakland Museum of California. Her work is included in the collections of the Berkeley Museum of Art and Pacific Film Archive, the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, and the Hammer Museum at UCLA. She lives and works in San Francisco. This is her third solo exhibition at Ratio 3.
Suzan Frecon (b. 1941, Mexico, PA) lives and works in New York. Her work was the focus of a major traveling exhibition, form, color, illumination: Suzan Frecon painting, that exhibited at The Menil Collection in Houston, Texas and the Kunstmuseum Bern in Switzerland in 2008. Her work has been included in several recent exhibitions including the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, the Menil Collection, Houston, Boston University Art Gallery, and the 2010 Whitney Biennial. Her works are included in the permanent collections of the Fogg Art Museum, Harvard University, Cambridge; Kunstmuseum Bern, Switzerland; The Menil Collection, Houston; The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; and the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Frecon is represented by David Zwirner, New York/London.
For all inquiries please contact:
Theo Elliott
+1 415 821 3371
theo@ratio3.org