Susan Tepper at Tripoli

[caption id="attachment_54497" align="alignright" width="331"] Susan Tepper, Untitled (from the Heads series), c. 1978-1983, acrylic and collage on Masonite, 16” x 12” (40.6 x 30.5 cm) © Arielle Tepper Madover, courtesy Hyphen & Tripoli Gallery. Photo by Thomas Barratt.[/caption]

Tripoli Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of works by East Hampton painter Susan Tepper (1943-1991), organized with the artist’s estate, from August 20 through September 19 at the Tripoli Gallery on Jobs Lane in Southampton. An exhibition catalog with an essay by Julie Belcove will be published for the occasion, and an opening reception will be held on Saturday, August 20 from 6 to 8 p.m.

Susan Tepper: Paintings 1978-1983 is the first solo exhibition of the artist’s work since 1989. In 2015, Guild Hall in East Hampton publicly reintroduced paintings by Ms. Tepper in its group exhibition, “Selfies and Portraits by Artists of the East End,” where six of Ms. Tepper’s portraits were seen alongside works by Joan Semmel, Ahn Doung, Eric Fischl, Cindy Sherman, and Billy Sullivan, among others.

Susan Tepper: Paintings 1978-1983 includes 22 abstracted faces, called “Heads,” made from a combination of acrylic, conte crayon, and collage on Masonite. Most are rendered bald, their gender indeterminate. This blurring of lines between masculine and feminine is a result of the artist’s observation that “sometimes we split right down the middle.” Some of these portraits are flat and collaged; others partly three-dimensional, with eyes fashioned from paint tubes’ metal components, their mouths built up with dried acrylic, then peeled from the bottom of paint containers.

The exhibition will also feature a selection of 48” by 24” collage and acrylic paintings on Masonite that the artist embarked on in 1978 as part of her “100 Women” series. Her goal was to portray, continuously and progressively, the female form in a direct frontal position. In many of these works she incorporated newspaper clippings, choosing words that retained their provocative meaning, even when taken out of context. Initially rendered as recognizably human forms, Ms. Tepper’s bodies evolved and transformed into abstractions.

“I am a painter of content — images of women swept into caves of isolation,” she wrote. “I paint the story of this condition.” An ardent feminist, she rebelled against traditional expecations for women, or what she described as the “violence of the relentless pull of the ‘should.’”

[caption id="attachment_54498" align="alignleft" width="207"] Susan Tepper, Untitled (from the 100 Women series), c. 1978-1983, acrylic, Conté crayon, and collage on Masonite, 48” x 24” (121.9 x 60.9 cm), © Arielle Tepper Madover, courtesy Hyphen & Tripoli Gallery. Photo by Thomas Barratt.[/caption]

Born in Plainfield, New Jersey, and raised in nearby Watchung, Ms. Tepper attended Vassar College, leaving to pursue treatment after an emotional breakdown. After recovery, she pursued a focused education in art, studying at the Arts Students League in New York City, as well as the School of Visual Art and the New York Studio School, and the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. Over the course of her life she participated in group shows at Ashawagh Hall and Guild Hall in East Hampton, the Painting Space Gallery at PS 122 in New York City and had exhibitions at the Benton Gallery in Southampton and the E.M. Donahue Gallery in the East Village. Otherwise, she rarely displayed her work.

For more information, visit tripoligallery.com.