Susan Mastrangelo: The Beat Goes On at Kathryn Markel

In Dialogue

Susan Mastrangelo’s solo show, The Beat Goes On, at The Pocket Gallery of Katherine Markel Fine Arts features work completed from 2022 to 2025, with the majority of the pieces completed in 2025. Mastrangelo creates bold reliefs that transform a variety of materials into bold abstract and biomorphic forms.

What will we see in this solo show?

Each painting in my exhibition navigates between abstraction and the human form. Materials included are upholstery cord, acrylic paint, my knitting, recycled fabric, and fragments of my linocut prints. The knitting serves as a metaphor for safety nets as they function to protect and hold life in place. These pieces were all created during a charged period in political history, as the larger world seemed to be more unstable, and personally, as I cared for my husband through a terminal illness. The resulting anxiety led me to make images where it was essential to be in the moment to create.

Susan Mastrangelo, Captured, 2025, knitting, upholstery cord, acrylic paint, monoprint on board, 30×24 in. Photo courtesy of Kathryn Markel Fine Arts Gallery

Tell us a bit more about your process.

Using an upholstery cord, I create an anatomical choreography on a wood panel, constructing shapes within a shape, an architectural formation finding its origins in the human form. My knitted swaths bind, connect, and become an integral part of the architectural layering, along with recycled fabric and paint. As I begin each piece, I have a general idea of colors and materials, but the composition and placement remain unknown. Working intuitively grants me the freedom to proceed without a preconceived vision, allowing me to work with a natural flow and internal rhythm.

The knitted sections are carefully considered in terms of size, color, and pattern. I use only recycled materials—scraps of clothing and remnants of upholstery fabric—paired with hand-cut pieces from my linocut prints on rice paper. My palette includes Flashe, Golden acrylic, and gouache. All elements—cord, fabric, print, paint—are applied simultaneously with Jade glue, and I do not focus on any one area. Consequently, my work evolves organically as a unified surface, reflecting both structure and instinct.

Photo courtesy of the artist unless otherwise indicated.

Kathryn Markel Fine Arts
Through August 1st
markelfinearts

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About the artist: Susan Mastrangelo was born in New York City and raised in D.C. She studied at the Kansas City Art Institute, New York Studio School, and earned her MFA from Boston University under Philip Guston. Based in New York, shehas exhibited nationally and internationally, receiving the Mercedes Matter Award, the Rockwell Visiting Artist Grant, and two Pollock-Krasner grants. Residencies include Yaddo, VCCA, Ragdale, Triangle (with Anthony Caro), Civitella Ranieri, the American Academy in Rome, and Tyrone Guthrie Centre. Her work has been reviewed in Art Forum by Barry Schwabsky, featured in Woven Tale Press, Suboart, and on Yale Radio with Brainard Carey. She’s published in Heads in Limbo (2013), Safe At Home (2021), and Between The Line And The Curve, with museum shows at Islip Art Museum and City Museum of Neuötting, Germany. Mastrangelo taught at Buckley School (1991–2017), chairing its art department, and now works full-time at the Can Factory in Gowanus, Brooklyn. @susankmastrangelo