“Suzanne Frazier Retrospective: 5 Decades of Art”, Solo Exhibition

D’art Contemporary Art Gallery, in Denver’s Santa Fe Art District, Hosts “Suzanne Frazier Retrospective: 5 Decades of Art”, Solo Exhibition by Suzanne Frazier” in Gallery East.

D’art Gallery, located at 900 Santa Fe Drive, hosts “Suzanne Frazier Retrospective: 5 Decades of Art”, Solo Exhibition by Suzanne Frazier in Gallery East. The exhibition runs from Thursday, August 26 through Sunday, September 19, 2021.

Suzanne Frazier, along with Lydia Riegle and Jean Smith exhibiting in the Main Gallery, hosts an Opening Reception on Friday, August 27 from 5 – 9 pm. D’art Gallery participates in the “Sundays on Santa Fe” hosting a reception on Sunday August 29 from 11 am to 4 pm with an artist talk by Suzanne Frazier between 1 – 3 pm. D’art Gallery will be open for Denver’s Art District on Santa Fe First Friday on Friday, September 3 from 6 – 9 pm. On Sunday, September 19 from 1 – 4 pm, Suzanne Frazier along with Lydia Riegle and Jean Smith offer a “Meet the Artists” opportunity. 

“Suzanne Frazier Retrospective: 5 Decades of Art” 

One of the 18 founding members of D’art Gallery, Suzanne Frazier, hosts an exhibition in Gallery East featuring five decades of her art. At the age of 74, Suzanne Frazier decided to give herself a retrospective featuring work from the 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s, 2010’s & 2020’s. As an older woman artist, she realizes that no one else is going to acknowledge her years of painting and teaching. And, as most women, who grew up in the 1960’s, she knows she has to do it herself.

Suzanne Frazier left her full time employment in 1987, at the age of 40, and enrolled at Denver University for art classes. In 1988, she transferred to the University of Colorado at Boulder to complete her course work for a BFA Degree in Studio Arts. She graduated in 1989 and has been a teaching and exhibiting artist ever since. 

In the exhibition, Suzanne plans to devote each wall in Gallery East to a ten year period of creativity. Although she has work also from the 1970’s, she decided that 5 decades was more than enough work to exhibit. 

She looks forward to sharing her 32 years of art making and exhibiting the development of her personal artistic expression from the 1980’s through 2021. 

Throughout her working years in Denver, she anticipated leaving her employment as the Promotion Director at KHOW Radio and then as a Ramp Assistant Manager at Frontier Airlines at Stapleton Airport to return to college to pursue her real vocation as an artist. Her father wouldn’t pay for college art classes at Lake Erie College where she graduated with Honors in Philosophy in 1969. She continued her education pursuing a Masters Degree in Philosophy at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, VA, until the prejudice she experienced as a woman pursuing a degree in Philosophy became too much to continue towards becoming a Philosophy Professor.

In 2000, ten years after creating oil paintings and teaching, Suzanne realized that she couldn’t continue calling herself a “beginning artist”. She took time to analyze her painting style and perspective to discover, much to her surprise, that her approach to art is from a contemplative point of view. She meditates before she begins her work day in the studio.

After searching for a definition for Contemplative Art and not finding any, she formulated her own definition: "Contemplative Art is the product of creative expression rising from the pure joy of creating, grounded in a meditative connection to the radiance and perfection of spirit known only through one’s experience of being fully human.” 

Suzanne explains her process, "During a contemplative experience one does not observe anything specific but rather a feeling emerges from the meditation. Likewise, I choose to create work that does not refer to any specific location or time. I choose instead to invite the viewer into my meditation of my collected emotional responses from residing in Colorado since 1972.” 

Suzanne Frazier perceives each painting as “sharing her contemplation”. She has been exhibiting at D’art Gallery since August 2019, when the gallery opened and has participated in all the group exhibitions. Since that time, she has had two solo exhibitions beginning with “Boketto - Seeing Into the Distance Without Thinking” right before the pandemic began in March 2020 and “Spirit Light” last December during COVID. She will host a third solo exhibition in May 2021 in the Main Exhibition Space of D’art Gallery. 

Suzanne Frazier

Suzanne Frazier combines a BFA degree in Studio Arts from the University of Colorado with a BA degree in Philosophy from Lake Erie College to create a philosophical/meditative approach to art making. In 2015, Suzanne published the book, Contemplative Art describing her meditative painting process and definition for contemplative art. Her work is in private collections in the United States, Canada, Japan and Europe. Her work can be viewed at https://suzannefrazierartist.com

Gallery Hours: Thursday, Noon to 5pm, Friday, Noon to 9 pm, Saturday, Noon to 5 pm, and Sunday, 1 pm to 4 pm. “Sundays on Santa Fe”, the last Sunday of each month, 11 am to 4 pm.