GALEN CHENEY

Using unconventional materials such as fluorescent paint, dress making patterns, modeling paste, and found papers, Galen Cheney’s body of work is equally diverse as her range of medium, spanning from oil on canvas and mixed media on paper to collaged paper and canvas compositions.  Complex, rigorous, and uncompromising in their emotional honesty, her work is deeply rooted in abstract expressionism, street art figuration, and pop.  There’s a masculine energy to the work – bold strokes, thick compounded layers, and a near aggressive underlying force to the composition that’s complemented by a more feminine, sensual quality of smaller strokes, soft pastels hues, and a serenity that’s lies beneath the surface chaos.  A fluidity to the work feels ceaseless and unfinished, pushing for further exploration, probing for completion.  Cheney herself remarks that her pieces feel “not fixed, not static, but open, and with a sense of still being composed.”  Living in Florence influenced Cheney’s work.  Century old walls with their own stories to tell mixed with graffiti of modern times, Cheney’s paintings mimic these polarities, similarly juxtaposing old with new. Her works, like ancient walls, seem to have stories imbedded within.