Susan Reedy utilizes vintage and contemporary ephemera that she deconstructs and reconfigures onto canvas and paper to evoke urban exterior surfaces that have accumulated layers of text, paper, and graffiti. These palimpsest surfaces reflect the passage of time, exposure to the elements, and benign neglect. Reedy’s practice is process oriented, resulting in a complex surface involving many layers of material and information. She selects materials from vintage ephemera: posters, segments of dictionaries, lexicons, musical scores, and magazines that are used in combination with acrylic paint and various drawing media. She sources these vintage materials in a process she compares to an “archeological dig” at flea markets, used bookstores, and estate sales. By selecting these overlooked objects, Reedy’s practice transforms and elevates essentially discarded ephemera, once functional in our society, now obsolete as we have marked the shift from analog to digital forms of communication.

Brian Slattery of the New Haven Independent stated that Reedy’s work “looks at once like a well-used place to post public bills, and like time-lapse photography, and like the view from a speeding train. Scraps of messages come and go, flickering in and out of sight before we can fully comprehend them. We know that the messages were for day-to-day things. Maybe one was a poster for a concert, and another an ad for sneakers, and another a political message from a candidate running for local election. But Reedy’s piece captures the way urban places can sometimes feel like they’re teetering on the edge of meaning; if you could just rearrange the letters of all those posters in the right way, or stand there long enough, the city you’re in would tell you what it all means to be there”.

Reedy’s work has been exhibited nationally and internationally, including venues in Scotland, Israel, and Argentina.  Solo and two person exhibitions include OK Harris Gallery, New York, New York, Anna Kaplan Contemporary, Buffalo, New York, Hewitt Gallery, New York, New York, Castellani Art Museum, Niagara Falls, New York and the Amherst Museum, Buffalo, New York.  Group exhibitions include Pierogi Gallery, Islip Art Museum, The Border Project Space, Merz Gallery, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Denise Bibro Fine Art, Concord Center for the Visual Arts, and the Memorial Art Gallery. Permanent collections include the Castellani Art Museum, Memorial Art Gallery, Roswell Park Comprehensive Cancer Center, and Mobil Corporation. Her work was selected for inclusion in Luis Camnitzer’s travelling project The Last Book, and Molly Sampson’s public art project Post No Bills.

Select works available:

Denise Bibro Fine Art New York, New York

Equity Gallery New York, New York

Pierogi Gallery New York, New York

Resource Art Buffalo, New York

 contact: susanreedystudio@gmail.com

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