Come to the Woods or You Won’t See Me

November 5th - December 13th, 2026

Opening Reception: First Thursday, November 5, 5-8PM
Second Reception: First Thursday, December 3, 5-8PM
Gallery Hours: By Appointment on Saturdays, 12-3PM

Specialist presents Come to the Woods or You Won’t See Me, new works by Susan Metrican.

Birds, flowering plants, insects, and reflected moons recur across cultural differences as worthy subjects to be painted, woven into textiles, and carved into wood. As a Thai American raised in the Midwest, Metrican is drawn to imagery that evokes a reverence for rural spaces, recognizable across borders, and held sincerely in each instance.

The imagery in Metrican’s work is informed by the life of motifs and how they move through time and translate back and forth across cultures, materials, and formats. Metrican physically cuts and sews canvas, borrowing techniques from clothing construction and upholstery. Through this process, both the canvas and the imagery are transformed, allowing familiar motifs to shape-shift and reanimate their contexts. Drawing on the decorative arts of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, Metrican explores the tensions beneath pastoral imagery and the enduring impulse to make things by hand.

Susan Metrican is an artist living and working in Fairfield, IA via Boston, NYC, Toronto, and Bangkok. Metrican received an MFA from the Massachusetts College of Art and Design, her BFA from the Kansas City Art Institute, and attended Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture in 2014. She was a resident artist at Shandaken: Storm King in 2022 and Interlude Artist Residency in 2024, and received the 2026 Iowa Artist Fellowship. Metrican’s work has been included in solo and group exhibitions nationally; most recently at Concord Art (MA), Hodges Taylor (NC), Framingham State University (MA), Headstone Gallery (NY), The Hole (NY), LaiSun Keane (MA), Rivalry Projects (NY), MassArt X SoWa (MA), Tracey Morgan Gallery (NC), LeRoy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University (NY), Maharishi University (IA), SPRING/BREAK Art Show 2017 (NY), Able Baker Contemporary (ME), GRIN Contemporary (RI), Proof Gallery (MA), Boston Center for the Arts (MA), Field Projects (NY), Knockdown Center (NY), and Gallery Protocol (FL). Metrican has been featured in ART MAZE Mag, Cream City Review, Cornelia Magazine, and Peripheries Journal. She is one of four founding members of kijidome, an experimental project space and collaborative in Boston, MA (2013-2017). From 2014-2022, she was the Curator at the Kniznick Gallery at Brandeis University.  She is currently Director of the Wege Gallery and Assistant Professor in the Art Department at Maharishi International University (IA).