Characterized by the fervent energy of gestural mark making and wide swaths of vibrant, unnatural colors, these recent paintings are lyrical forms of civilized society immersed in a wilder existence. Joy, savagery and carnal sensuality that sometimes references violence, are expressed with a contemporary working of paint to create complex, emotional compositions by way of the subconscious rather than analytical mind. The background colors weave through the suggestive narrative forms, denying solidity while searching for an interconnectedness through instinctual motions. They depict a hybridized nature where animals and people are swept up in an urgent desire to exist, to flourish. The cast of characters convey shifting psychological states that speak to the ambiguities, transient responses, and faulty storylines of contemporary life.

Suzanne Unrein's work has been exhibited in galleries and museums throughout the U.S, including Rare Gallery (New York, NY), Heather James Fine Arts (Palm Desert, CA); Mitte Projects (New York, NY & Miami, FL), Galleri Urbane (Dallas, TX,) Boltax Gallery at the Next Art Fair (Chicago, IL,) the Sara Nightingale Gallery (Sag Harbor, NY) and Boltax Gallery (Shelter Island, NY.)

Unrein’s work is in the current exhibition, “Risky Business” curated by Marie Thibeault and Max Presneill at the Torrance Art Museum, Torrance CA. Recent shows include “Suzanne Unrein: Undertow,” at Mosaic Artspace with a catalog and accompanying essay by Dan Cameron, LIC, NY; “Bodies, bodies, bodies: raffish vulnerability and profane ambivalence,” curated by Parker Daley Garcia at Pen + Brush, NY, NY; “Re-Wilding: JoAnne Carson & Suzanne Unrein” at the Sara Nightingale Gallery, Sag Harbor, NY, “Make Art Not War” at Pierogi Gallery, Brooklyn, NY and “Properties of Illusion in the Candy Store” at ArtPort Kingston, Kingston NY, curated by Laurie de Chiara.

Unrein is a 2023 grant recipient of the FST StudioProjects Fund, New York, NY and a 2023-2024 recipient of the studio program residency at Painting Space 122, New York, NY. Unrein’s work was spotlighted in The Oxford Handbook of Perceptual Organization (Oxford University Press) and the focus of the short film, Hands & Eyes, that premiered at the Hamptons International Film Festival. Her residencies and fellowships include the Studio Program at P.S. 122 in the East Village, the Jentel Foundation in Banner, WY, and the Can Serrat residency in Le Bruc, Barcelona, Spain. Unrein's work is in the public collections of Andromeda Advantage, Long Island City, NY; the Eileen S. Kaminsky Family Foundation, Jersey City, NJ; the U.S. Embassy, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia; Fish & Game, Hudson, NY and The Kevin Richardson Wildlife Sanctuary, Pretoria, South Africa. Unrein is a California native and a current New Yorker by way of Florida.