THE ECSTATIC TEAR
GALEN CHENEY
November 10 - December 17, 2021
Reception + Artist's Talk: November 17, 4:00 - 5:30 p.m.
Galen Cheney, a painter based in North Adams, Massachusetts, exhibits eleven monumental new abstract paintings in the Charles Danforth Gallery at the University of Maine at Augusta. A graduate of Mount Holyoke College who earned her MFA at the Maryland Institute College of Art, Cheney’s process-driven paintings explore emotion, spirituality, and the flow of energy through an artistic process that harnesses the potential of both destruction and creation.
Cheney named her exhibition, “The Ecstatic Tear” for the artist’s experience of tearing earlier paintings into strips of canvas she then collages onto new paintings. Destroying paintings to create new ones opens an ecstatic space of possibility that fuels Cheney’s inventive, open-ended creative process in her studio. Cheney explains,“Each piece is unique and while I have trusted methods that I have developed over time, there is no formula. It’s different every time.” Cheney’s process interweaves creation and destruction in a riotous visual expedition into the unknown, channeling color, material, time, and labor into new possibilities alive at the edge of painting.
Galen Cheney: The Ecstatic Tear is on display from November 10 - December 17, 2021. If masked, the public is welcome to visit the gallery in Jewett Hall, which is open on Monday through Friday from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. The UMA community and the general public are invited to a reception and artist talk on Wednesday, November 17th from 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m.