Suzanne McClelland’s “Mute” Paintings Demonstrate a Provocative Silence in an Era of Noise

After thirty years of exhibiting her work, language has failed Suzanne McClelland. Or, more accurately, she has failed language, having banished text from her latest series of paintings, “Mute” (2019), the subject of her most recent show. Those who have followed McClelland’s career are used to literally reading her abstractions; in them, she has wielded bits of text, ranging from innocuous prepositions to conversational fragments to absurd ciphers and even obscenities, as compo