Alden Gallery presents “Cathleen Daley and Alice Denison”

Opening Friday, September 5, 2014, 7–9 pm

Provincetown, MA: The Alden Gallery will present “Cathleen Daley and Alice Denison,” a two-person show, on Friday, September 5, 2014, from 7 to 9 p.m., at the gallery’s exhibit space at 423 Commercial St. Drinks and refreshments will be served at the reception, and the artists will be attending; the gallery is open to the public and free. The exhibit will be on view through September 25.

Color is the primary catalyst for paintings of Cathleen Daley, a Waltham-based artist who has been showing at the Alden Gallery since it opened in 2007. “The relational nature of color, its fugitive temporality and ability to convey meaning autonomously are my inspirations,” Daley says. “Initiated by observation, my work develops with a deliberate consideration of the elements of painting, from its physical properties and the dynamics of engagement to its historical lineage. My work collapses art-historical chronologies and the polarities that movements can suggest, that is, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Pop—my early influences.” In Daley’s new series, entitled “Positive Signs,” signage and corporate branding meet atmospheric phenomena to create a holistic experience of color. “Each of the paintings begin with a gridded drawing to which I apply color in multiple thin layers without the use of tape—I prefer to participate in the meditation and discovery that time and the hand alone allow.”

To Alice Denison, flowers are an obsession. “The flowers that interest me are the ones on wallpaper, fabric and paintings,” she says. “The decorative ones; the ones that make no claim to meaning. The ones we walk on, sit on, eat on, sleep on, and wear. The backdrop flowers. They have meaning because they almost always remind me of something, sometime, or someone. And because the meaning is associative, it is mysterious, and its mystery makes it more interesting still.” In her new series of paintings on view at the Alden Gallery (where Denison, based in Arlington, has been showing since it opened in Provincetown in 2007), called “Mixed Meta,” the floral metaphors are indeed mixed—and multiplied by the shrouded images of vessels, another form of object that has recently been appearing in Denison’s strikingly detailed work. The results are more provocative and mysterious than ever.

The gallery is open on weekends (Thursday–Monday) in the fall. Website: www.aldengallery.com Gallery phone: 508-483-4230. Press contact: Howard Karren, 646-483-8164 / hjkarren@mac.com