Helen Day Arts Center "guest curates" LNT's Lobby Gallery for RED and chooses Middlesex and Internationally-Acclaimed artist Galen Cheney.
Helen Day Arts Center serves as Guest Curator for LNT's Lobby Gallery for RED - the Best Play Tony Award Winning script by John Logan exploring the many shades of superstar painter Mark Rothko- at LNT June 2–19: choosing Middlesex and Internationally-Acclaimed artist GALEN CHENEY
Lost Nation Theater is very grateful to have Helen Day Art Center's support in finding just the right artist to pair with this extraordinary play, which "captures what most plays about artists do not: the exhilaration of the act of creating" - The New Yorker. HDAC's Rachel Moore is the curator for this exhibit of Galen Cheney.
See Rachel talk about Galen's work while installing the exhibit!
Galen Cheney has been painting professionally for more than 20 years. After receiving her MFA from the Maryland Institute, College of Art, she lived in Italy then criss-crossed her way across the US working a variety of jobs, from magazine editor to bronze foundry carver to teacher, custom framer, and massage therapist, all the while continuing to paint. She is now working exclusively as an artist. Galen has received numerous awards and fellowships for her painting, including a nomination in 2013 for a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant, a Millay Colony fellowship in 2014, three full fellowships to the Vermont Studio Center, and a publication award from Open Studios Press.
The Lobby Gallery at LNT will be open for you to experience Galen's work during perfomrances (Thu-Sun) and by appointment.
We're very excited to exhibit Galen because of the power of her work and because her philosophy about painting seems to have much in common with Rothko's - even if the results are quite different.
Galen says
Painting is a sort of heartbreak. Initially there’s the seduction—the painting seems to paint itself and everything is working. Then, the veil slips and all the flaws are revealed, one by one, and I have to undo everything that I at first thought was so beautiful. This plays out again and again in each painting until something new pushes forward, hopefully stronger, stranger, unanticipated. And by flaws I don’t mean mistakes, for I think any strength my paintings may have is born of the accumulation of shifts in direction, which manifest as surfaces that are built up, scraped off, carved into, and built up again.
The painting is a record of its making. That physicality is intrinsic to these process-driven works. I have long been drawn to new and ancient cities; to the energy of the modern city and its many walls given over to graffiti as well as to the peeling frescoes of Pompeii and ancient cave paintings. I relate to them both aesthetically and emotionally.
Mark by mark by mark I am compelled to get at some thing through painting which may very well be unattainable. And honestly, I hope to never get there.
(And of course Mark Rothko says "There's tragedy in every brushstroke)
Galen will be on hand Opening Night Friday June 3 and will give a FREE pre-show talk about her work on Saturday June 4 starting at 6:45pm.
(The work is available for purchase)