Cathleen Daley/ Alice Denison
Artist Reception Friday, September 2, 2022 7-9pm
Provincetown, MA: The Alden Gallery will present a two-person show of new work by Cathleen Daley and Alice Denison, opening on Friday, September 2, 2022, at 423 Commercial St. The artists’ reception will be on opening day, Friday, September 1, from 7 to 9 p.m. The show will be on view through September 15.
Cathleen Daley, a graduate of MassArt’s former MFA program at the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, has been with the gallery since it began in 2007, and she returns with selected works from her series “Field Studies.” “Flux and flow, form and formlessness: the paintings of this series are reflections on the rhythm of existence and the fullness of life,” Daley says. “They might be seen as star fields, force fields, or dream states, with vibes and variations all over, simultaneous, and ever-changing. My interest is in exploring the contradictory phenomena of just where maximum density overload meets the meditative — from buzz to harmony, boogie-woogie to balance. Painted at a pace intentionally slow, the ritual of the process yields its own reward.”
Like Cathleen Daley, Alice Denison is also a graduate of MassArt’s former MFA program at the Fine Arts Work Center and has been with Alden Gallery since its inception. She returns this year with a series called “On the Small Side.” “These six paintings began experimentally,” Denison says. “I was working on layering floral images while keeping the paint so thin it would look as if the piece was woven into the linen. This method requires sacrifice: putting paint on, taking it off, repeating that again and again and building a painting, essentially, from residue. While working on them, I came under the spell of Mary Delany. She noticed and recorded the finest details in each plant she drew, cut out, embroidered, or painted. I wanted my works to have some of that specificity. All but one of the pieces in this show is named for the plant that is its subject and all combine areas of description with fading, blurring, and decorating—which I still can’t resist.”
Pelargonium, by Alice Denison, oil on linen, 12 x 12”