Suzanne C. Nagy (born in 1947) has lived in the United States since 1978. She earned a Master’s degree in Economics and worked in the field for ten years during the era of Socialism in Hungary. In 1980 she studied art at the New York Art League. This experience helped her to create the subject of her paintings and sculptures. During this time she had seven successful one woman show exhibitions and she also participated in several group shows. Nagy opened her first gallery in 1990 in New York City. She opened her second gallery in 2000 where she specializes on XX century art as a collector and art dealer.
In 1977 she received her diploma in film producing and writing in Hungary. Shortly after she moved to New York Nagy worked as a movie producer until 1986. She worked with such names as George Clooney, Louis Fletcher, Charlie Sheen, Laura Dern and Deborah Raffin.
During the late 1980’s Nagy created several series of artworks parallel to her movie producing career. Her art style was one of the most dynamic of its time. She started out using abstract expressionism, which she mixed with surrealism and symbolism. Her exhibition history goes back to the early 1980’s.
She exhibited a one woman show about the accelerated time and the philosophic task about modern times and living in the changing world.
In 1982 at the National Gallery of Hungary Nagy exhibited the collection called the “Tale of the Clock”. In 1987 the same series was shown in the Matignon Gallery on Madison Avenue, New York City. In 1996 Bertelsmann Publishing Company published an art book, which contained thirty-eight artworks and a moving story. In the following years her focus shifted onto the subject of the fall of the socialist dictatorship and regime. Nagy spent four years to create a series of artworks entitled the “Wall”. The series was completed in 1989 for her surprise when the events, indeed, took place with the falling of the Berlin Wall. Parallel to these events Nagy also worked on the human motivation and mystical quality of who we are in her series entitled “DNA”. In 2001 she eye witnessed the collapse of the World Trade Center and created a series of works entitled “I was an eye witness…” for which she won an award in New York City, and the American Embassy organized an exhibition installation for her work in 2002 in Budapest.
In 2005 Nagy made a multi-level installation entitled “Microwave” which was a futuristic project offered an entire history of mankind. This was the first time when she introduced metal and plastic boxes as sculpture installation as well as wood masks from all over the world. This was the beginning where she seriously focused on four-dimensional space, which is the reason why she chose sculpture as her medium.
In 2007 she had an exhibition in Budapest, a five dimensional sculpture installation entitled “Monoliths and Metamorphosis”. Nagy owns two galleries in Manhattan, one gallery in Budapest and her atelier is at the Lake Balaton.
“The artist is looking for a mystical connection between life and objects. Nagy is telling stories throughout her art, finding a simplification by representing a playful manner even for complicated subject matters. She then connects meaningful subjects to each other and build them together”.
In 2008 she exhibited light boxes in New York City at 1091 Madison Ave. gallery entitled “The Polluters” dealing with environmental issues. Since that time she exhibited an extended form of the same subject under the title of “Pollution / Remediation” in both Budapest and New York. She presented a series of work in the Mexican Gulf oil spill disaster in her 2010 New York and Budapest exhibition.
In 2011 she continues to tackle the same problem when she volunteered to work in Devescer, Hungary where alumni byproduct spilled from the factory reservoir and destroyed three nearby villages which resulted in the largest environmental disaster in Europe caused by human negligence. Nagy took over 200 photographs during the volunteer work there and published a book in paperback and eBook entitled Red Mud which was the biggest environmental disaster in Europe caused by human negligence. Her photographs and drawings will be exhibited in April 2011 at 1091 Madison Ave. Gallery and the book is available at Lulu.com.
A coffee table book will also be published for the upcoming exhibition entitled, “Pollution/Remediation” at the Freies Museum Berlin in August of 2011. In the fall, Nagy will deliver a lecture to accompany an exhibition in New York City entitled “The Aftershock of Manmade Disasters and Their Effect on Woman” in partnership with Women’s eNews.
Nagy is listed in the “Who’s Who” successful American women directory, a member of the Yale Club and also listed in all Hungarian art publications as an artist and collector.