Abstract observations: Bonnie Sucec's UMFA exhibition has something to say

The show of large paintings by Bonnie Sucec — running through January in the Utah Museum of Fine Art — battles for its visual existence against the art-devouring immensity of the museum's Great Hall exhibition space.

Fortunately for us, Sucec wins the fight.

In fact, her "Sideshow" exhibit, a collection of paintings inspired by current political and social events, tells such visually intricate stories that the space surrounding her art becomes mere white noise.

In their 1997 book, "Utah Painting and Sculpture," Swanson, Olpin and Seifrit referred to Sucec as an imagist painter. Today, she would truly be considered an abstract imagist.

Chicago art writer Clara Rose Thornton defines imagist art as pop and surrealism's illegitimate child, consisting of "boldly colorful, figuratively fragmented paintings" relying "heavily on abstraction and subverted references to popular culture" — a perfect description of Sucec's work.

"These pieces are very political," Sucec told the Deseret Morning News. "It's been on my mind because it's not hard to be concerned about current events."

Yet her paintings don't start out as political or autobiographical or anything else — she almost never has a preconceived image in her head before she begins. "I start out with just a couple of marks; really, just a couple of shapes. And then I keep making more shapes and marks until something kind of clicks. It might be a color or a pattern or a shape. Then I let it grow from there."

This is how many abstract expressionist painters work: building up images that suddenly become nearly recognizable entities and then take on meaning.

Because Sucec employs gouache (opaque watercolor) as a medium in most of her paintings, she's able to work fast. "Gouache dries very quickly. You can paint right over it."

But it generally takes her a week or two to complete a painting. And when you see her tangled, whimsical narratives you'll know why.

Three of the best pieces in the show are "Confess," "Second Thoughts" and "Sinking Ships," a sort of triptych dealing with very unusual-looking heads.

In "Confess," triangular entities, some with and without limbs, enter the ear of a head form stuck in some kind of webbing. The head depicts blood vessels, muscles and organs, all abstracted in Sucec's style. From the mouth of this head the entities are vomited, only to return to the ear.

It sounds grisly, but it's an absolutely brilliant design that grips the eye and coerces the mind into finding answers to the enigmatic image.

"Second Thoughts" has what appears to be a horned, green man being accosted by a swirling swarm of diminutive jetliners, birds and fish. It's as if regrets of 9/11 are hounding this horn-headed devil.