Suzanne McClelland fuses painterly marks with linguistic elements, creating rhythmic canvases that explore both visual and written languages. McClelland often begins with poetic verses, names, or numbers that she weaves into the space of her canvas, though she is rooted firmly in a tradition of abstraction, placing her in conversation with figures such as Louise Fishman or Joan Snyder. Her vibrant paintings teeter toward drawing with their sketchy brushstrokes, revealing the artist’s embrace of the infinite possibilities of abstract painting. “I’m playing with the notion of what painting is,” McClelland has said. “It is a combination of marks and stains and smudges and spills—all those things that can be considered mistakes.”