Nick Ryan Gallery presents Brief Transit, a solo exhibition by Massachusetts based painter Galen Cheney.
"My work is a mystery to me that I have been mining for 40 years.
I am okay with uncertainty in my work. Life is uncertain and brief—why would painting be any different? Just as I may have intentions for the day or the year, chance intervenes and life unfolds of its own accord. I have to be awake and attentive to the unexpected, and so it is with painting. How confident am I feeling that day, how bruised my ego, what is the light like, what were my dreams the previous night—these factors are as important as any idea I might have about how to move a painting forward. Mine is an interior process; the not knowing is scary, addictive, and central to how I make art.
A painting starts with a whiff of an idea, just enough to enter the pool. Those first strokes will not be seen in the finished painting, but are crucial to its direction. It makes sense that all the paintings are different from one another. They are cousins to one another, sharing DNA, yet are distinct in personality and point of view. It couldn’t be otherwise, as each painting informs the next and each day informs the next.
Painting is how I meet the world and feel alive during my brief transit through it. "
- Galen Cheney
Galen Cheney (b. Los Angeles) lives and works in the Berkshires, Massachusetts. She studied at Mount Holyoke College and received her MFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art, where she was mentored by Grace Hartigan, Hermine Ford, and Salvatore Scarpitta. Her work has been widely exhibited in the United States and internationally, and she was nominated for a Joan Mitchell Foundation grant. Residencies include the Millay Colony for the Arts, MASS MoCA, and the Vermont Studio Center.
