David Castillo is proud to present Impressions, a solo exhibition of new works on silk by Chinese-born painter, Su Su. These new paintings employ a technique of the artist’s own invention, wherein oil paint is pushed through the backside of the painting. Oil paint serves as both medium and methodology in these works, facilitating metamorphic figurative paintings that navigate the intersections of cultural memory, canonical legacies and representations of femininity. This method accentuates each color’s unique hue, creating a dynamic tableau where colors fluidly interact, yet remain strikingly distinct. Echoing principles from Chinese ink painting, the works emphasize emotive and sensory experiences over detailed representation, resulting in vibrant color interplays.

In Su Su’s silk paintings, colors drip outward, drawing the viewer in. Through the quality and form of colors, she conveys the sensorial relationships between subjects. By closely studying the subject, Su Su’s paintings emphasize her experience. The artist says “my impression of a rose changes when I look at it at different times. The experience inspires me to refresh my impression of the same subject in different moments of life.”

Su Su was born in Beijing, China, and currently lives and works in New York. She received her MFA from Carnegie Mellon University, and from 2015 to 2021 served as a guest professor at Carnegie Mellon University.  Recent exhibitions with the gallery include The Floral Impulse, a group exhibition curated by Xaviera Simmons (2022). Su Su’s work has been featured in exhibitions at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the de la Cruz Museum, the Carnegie Museum of Art, The Andy Warhol Museum, and others. Her works are held in the permanent collections of the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the de la Cruz Museum, and other major collections.