NYACK, NY.- This fall, the Edward Hopper House Museum & Study Center presents Susan Chen: Rooms by the Sea, marking the New York–based artist’s first museum solo exhibition. On view through February 21, 2027, the exhibition brings together a series of Chen’s richly hued, energetic plein air paintings of Cape Cod, Massachusetts, alongside works on paper and watercolors by Edward Hopper and by Josephine Nivison Hopper.
Centered around Chen’s recent large-scale double portrait, Rooms by the Sea (2026)—a direct tribute to Edward Hopper’s iconic 1951 masterpiece of the same title at the Yale University Art Gallery depicting his Truro studio —the exhibition explores the Outer Cape of Massachusetts through her vibrant, contemporary lens.
Reimagining the American Dream on the Outer Cape
As a first-generation American artist, Susan Chen (b. 1992, Hong Kong SAR) weaves personal history, cross-cultural perspective, and deep ecological observation into the traditional lineage of American landscape painting. She began visiting the Cape every summer ten years ago; her 2024 trip—intended as a respite after a busy period— sparked in her a restlessness. Processing the sensation through resonance with artists Barkley L. Hendricks in Jamaica, Alex Katz in Maine, David Hockney in Yorkshire, Henri Matisse in Corsica, and, above all, Edward Hopper in Truro, Chen turned to her surroundings and began to paint. What began as an annual summer getaway evolved into an immersive project, yielding nearly forty canvases painted outdoors across Truro, Eastham, and Provincetown. The paintings in this show are her latest collection.
Where Edward and Josephine (‘Jo’) Nivison Hopper recorded Cape Cod’s quiet, sun-bleached isolation beginning in 1930—well before Route 6 began to expand—Chen approaches the coast as a first-generation immigrant, reflecting on assimilation, belonging, and the complexities of the American Dream. Her canvases capture both the historic allure of the coastal landscape and its modern vulnerabilities—from changing seasonal climates to the site’s dual identity as a indigenous contact point and a modern leisure resort.
Where Hopper's Cape Cod is one of a quiet hum, Chen's rumbles, notes exhibition curator Indira A. Abiskaroon Valbuena. The whisper of beach grass has grown to a rustle, the soft lap of waves now whooshes. In place of Hopper's elegiac stillness, Chen's canvases quiver, rattle, and sway—lush, immediate, no less honest, and no less sublime.
Uncovering the Legacy of Josephine Nivison Hopper
A central force of the exhibition is Chen’s dialogue with Josephine Hopper, whose critical contributions to her husband’s career—and her own artistic practice—were historically sidelined, until the first ever art historical article appeared on her in 1980, with pioneering scholarship actively ongoing.
This exhibition offers a fascinating dialogue between artists across generations, each grappling with memory, place, and modern life, says Executive Director Kathleen Motes Bennewitz. As we celebrate the Museum's 55th anniversary in 2026, this show perfectly honors our mission to champion contemporary voices inspired by the Hoppers' lives and enduring legacies.
While developing this exhibition at the Edward Hopper House Museum, and also spending time at the Truro Historical Society, Chen encountered Jo Hopper’s legacy, including her hand-drawn Truro maps (The Pratt Munson College of Art and Design, Utica, NY) and watercolors. Chen’s own 2026 double-portrait and flower still life draws direct inspiration from Jo’s painting Obituary (Fleurs du Temps Jadis; 1948, oil on canvas, Whitney Museum of American Art), honoring Jo’s overlooked place in art history.
Susan Chen: Rooms by the Sea is made possible, in part, by funds provided by the New York Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, and support from Uffner & Liu Gallery, New York, and generous donors Carla Shen, Pamela & David Hornik, The Eden Arts Foundation and H6 Arts Fund. In-kind sponsorship for artist supplies provided by Soho Art Materials and Golden Artist Colors.
Susan Chen (b. 1992, Hong Kong SAR) is a visual artist based in New York City. Her practice spans collaborative community portraiture, self-portraits, and conceptual still life, alongside a growing body of plein air landscapes that began with her Cape Cod series. She holds an MFA from Columbia University and a BA Honors from Brown University. Chen is a 2025 Creative Capital Grant recipient, a 2020 Hopper Prize winner, a 2022 Forbes 30 Under 30 and Artsy Vanguard honoree; In 2022, she was also an Artist-in-Residence at Silver Art Projects in their Social Justice & Activism program at the World Trade Center. Her solo exhibitions have been presented at Meredith Rosen Gallery, New York, NY; Night Gallery, Los Angeles, CA; and Rachel Uffner Gallery, New York, NY. Recent group exhibitions include the Brooklyn Museum, Brooklyn, NY; The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, CT; Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK; Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, ME; Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University, Waltham, MA; Songwon Art Center, Seoul, South Korea; and Jeffrey Deitch, New York, NY & Los Angeles, CA. Her work is held in the permanent collections of the Brooklyn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Yuz Museum Shanghai, and the Museum of Chinese in America, and has been featured on the cover of New York Magazine and covered by The New York Times, CNN, PBS, Artnet, among others.
