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Artist Statement
The creative process and the exploration and manipulation of materials are the chief drivers of my work. They are the engine and the fuel. Experimentation, risk taking and pushing my own boundaries are ongoing concerns, always with an eye toward gritty beauty and a palpable energy. This energy alternately recalls natural forces or more urban frequencies.
The work I am currently making is a furthering, a deepening of work that I started during a residency in China in 2015. There, I was working with accumulated papers, building them up into multi-layered constructions. While I continue to work with paper, I have also shifted that approach to using canvas and more durable materials. The process is additive and reductive. I use fragments of past paintings, old receipts, used airline tickets, remnants of past experiences and work them into the texture of the new painting. They become one with the surface, imbuing the painting with memory, history, a sense of time, and an accidental quality, which I find beautiful and compelling. Paintings made this way—constructed, really--have a distinct object-like quality, which is satisfying.
Working in this physical way allows my mind to stay open and present in the process. It keeps me from becoming too tight and closing down the creative possibilities of a painting before it is finished. I strive to keep the painting as open as I can for as long as I can before finishing it. It is the opposite of planning a painting and then executing the plan. I prefer my paintings to have a raw, open quality.
More recently I have introduced liquid textile color into my work, which I pour and brush onto raw canvas. This fluid, intensely pigmented paint soaks into the canvas and is often difficult to control, which is an ideal way to open a path into a painting. I am now working on combining this staining process with collage and oil paint.
http://galencheney.com/
Above image: Unbidden, acrylic, oil and oil pastel on collaged canvas
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