Sara Suppan
Sara Suppan is a painter in Minneapolis. Much of her recent work could be considered portraits of objects; plain and yet contemporary, light and strange. She loves ordinary objects, drawings within paintings, and when goofiness undercuts beauty. Sara has had solo shows with Micki Meng (San Francisco) and Moosey (United Kingdom) and exhibited with them each, respectively, at NADA Miami and CAN Art Ibiza. Last year, she presented with Huxley-Parlour (United Kingdom) at Untitled Miami and in a group show in London. Sara has also shown at Hashimoto Contemporary (LA), Kutlessa (Switzerland), and Weinstein Hammons (Minneapolis), where she will have her next solo. She participated in summer residencies at Moosey (United Kingdom) and Salzburger Kunstverein (Austria), was published in New American Paintings magazine, and has been awarded multiple grants for her work. Sara received her BFA in painting from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design in 2015.
Collect Bean x The Art Kollective: What does growth mean to you?
Sara Suppan: Growth is only observed by looking backward, and I mostly try to keep my head down. Some kind of growth will always come from working, working, working. I am happy to see that my paintings have become more precise and lush over time.
Collect Bean x The Art Kollective: What role does art play in society, and how does your work contribute to that?
Sara Suppan: The answer to the first part of this question is like a multi-headed hydra. Of course many artists have sought to make a direct impact socially, for a political cause, in their community, with propaganda, for clout, or for their religion. These are all part of what art is and has been. But the artwork I am most attracted to simply adds more beauty, humor, and thought. I hope that my paintings create a fellow feeling through their plain and contemporary subjects, like a banana in the back pocket of some blue jeans, or fingers coated in Cheeto dust. That’s plenty for me.
Collect Bean x The Art Kollective: How do you see your artwork fitting into the larger art world or art history?
Sara Suppan: I was early influenced by Charles Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life” (1860); a persuasive essay advocating that artists capture the current moment and rather than endlessly reproduce masterpieces. I leverage the historical weight of oil painting to contrast familiar tropes with ultra-contemporary subjects. For example, I’ll employ traditional still-life techniques to paint feet wearing socks from Target, or a Y2K champagne flute. Stuff like that brings me a lot of joy. I try to connect with viewers through this specificity of time and culture, elevating the everyday things they know.
Collect Bean x The Art Kollective: If you could give your younger self one piece of advice, what would it be?
Sara Suppan: Get cats sooner.
Collect Bean x The Art Kollective: If you had to describe your work in only three words, what would they be?
Sara Suppan: Light, sincere, uncanny.
