Alden Gallery presents Cathleen Daley and Alice Denison—Opening: Friday, June 15, 7 – 9 p.m.

Provincetown, MA: The Alden Gallery will present a two-person show of new work by Cathleen Daley and Alice Denison, opening on Friday, June 15, 2018, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the gallery’s exhibit space at 423 Commercial St. Drinks and refreshments will be served; the gallery is open to the public and free. The show will be on view through June 28.

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 returns with selected works from her Field Studies series. “Flux and flow, form and formlessness,” Daley says. “The paintings in my Field Studies series are reflections on the rhythm of existence and the fullness of life. 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 where maximum density overload meets the meditative — from buzz to harmony, boogie-woogie to balance.

 

A fellow graduate of MassArt’s former MFA program at the Fine Arts Work Center who has also been with Alden Gallery since its inception, Alice Denison serves up work from her Pangloss series for her 2018 show. Here’s how the series came about: “After the 2016 election, I had trouble painting,” Denison says. “About a year later, on a trip to Lisbon, I was reintroduced to the history of All Saints Day (November 1) in 1755, when an earthquake struck the city, followed by tsunamis and a fire. That led me to reread Candide, which Voltaire wrote in response to the Lisbon disaster. In the book, Candide’s mentor, Dr. Pangloss, teaches him that ‘everything happens for the best, in this, the best of all possible worlds.’ After many horrific adventures, Candide ultimately rejects this philosophy, concluding that the best way to live in this deeply screwed-up world is to simply tend to your own garden. Returning from my trip, I was able to work again. I owe a lot to the misguided Dr. Pangloss, whom I think of as my companion in the gardens I’m planting.  The Pangloss paintings are based on tapestries and frescoes I’ve seen at the Cloisters, in New York, and in Europe. The plants are real, but the arrangements are not. They are painted in overlapping layers, out of scale, all in bloom at once.”

 

The gallery will be open daily, 11 a.m.-5 p.m. and 6-9 p.m. Summer hours continue through Labor Day, after which the gallery will be open weekends through New Year’s Day, 2019. Press contact: aldengallery@gmail.com or (646) 483-8164.

 

The remainder of the 2018 season schedule for the Alden Gallery:

June 29 – July 12, opening reception, Friday, June 29, 7-9 p.m.:
Robert Glisson, Linda Reedy, and Anne Salas

July 13–26, opening reception, Friday, July 13, 7-9 p.m.:
Sean McCabe and Robert Morgan

July 27 – August 9, opening reception, Friday, July 27, 7-9 p.m.:
Paul Kelly and Mike Wright

August 10 – 23, opening reception, Friday, August 10, 7-9 p.m.:
Joerg Dressler and Kirk Jenkins

August 24 – September 6, opening reception, Friday, August 24, 7-9 p.m.:
Kevin Cyr and Laurence Young

September 7 – January 2, 2019: Autumn Group Show