Education
1990 MFA Painting, Maryland Institute College of Art
1984 BA cum laude, Mount Holyoke College
1982-83 University of Florence Italy, Smith College Abroad
1980 Taft School, Watertown, CT.
Awards
2007 Artist's Resource Trust Award, Berkshire Taconic Foundation
2005 Alliance of Visual Artists, Lebanon, NH, Juror's Choice Award
1999 Beaverton, Oregon Arts Commission, First prize, oils and acrylics
1998 Full Fellowship, Vermont Studio Center
Fellowship finalist, Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center
Solo Exhibitions
2009 Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center, Hanover, New Hampshire
Home Hill Inn, Plainfield, New Hampshire
2008 West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
The Taft School, Watertown, Connecticut
2007 West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
2006 South End Art Hop, Burlington, Vermont
2005 Supreme Court of Vermont, Montpelier, Vermont
VA Gallery, Lebanon, New Hampshire
Galerie 1225, Montreal, Canada
2003 Bundy Center for the Arts, Waitsfield, Vermont
2000 Omni Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1999 Omni Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1998 Rogue Community College, Grants Pass, Oregon
1997 Omni Gallery, Portland, Oregon
Group Exhibitions
2009 The Sketchbook Project, touring museums and galleries in Atlanta, Boston, Washington, DC,
Brooklyn, Chicago, St. Louis, and Philadelphia
2008 Night of 1,000 Drawings, Artist's Space, New York, NY
Artrageous, Nashsville, Tennessee
Festiv'Art 2008, Frelighsburg, Quebec
Paradise City Arts Festival, Northampton, Massachusetts
Tenth Anniversary Show, Vermont Supreme Court
West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
2007 Red Mill Gallery, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont
Gracie Square Art Show, New York, New York
Valdosta National, Valdosta State University, Valdosta, Georgia
Art Path Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
2006 New Directions '06, Barrett Art Center, Poughkeepsie, New York
West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
2005 Studio Place Arts, Barre, Vermont
West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
2004 AVA Gallery, Lebanon, New Hampshire
West Branch Gallery, Stowe, Vermont
2001 Church and Maple Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
FlynnDog Gallery, Burlington, Vermont
Jewish Community Center of Greater New Haven
1999 Omni Gallery, Portland, Oregon
1998 Beaverton Arts Commission Showcase, Beaverton, Oregon
Eastern Washington University 1996 Gallery 84, New York, NY
College of Santa Fe Fine Arts Gallery, Santa Fe, New Mexico
WomanMade Gallery, Chicago, Illinois
1995 Kristal Gallery, Warren, Vermont
1994 Westbeth Gallery, New York, New York
Red Mill Gallery, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, Vermont
1992 Libreria Il Drago, Galluzzo - Florence, Italy
Publications
Galen Cheney, Internal Combustion, Kasini House Publishing, 2008
New England Watershed Magazine, Spring, 2007
Seven Days, December, 2005, September, 2001, March, 2001
Times Argus, October, 2005, June, 2005
Faculty
Alliance of Visual Arts, Lebanon, NH
GALEN CHENEY- ARTIST STATEMENT
People ask me, “What inspires you?” Honestly, the concept of inspiration is foreign to me, as it implies a force outside oneself, compelling a person to create. I, on the other hand, am so internally driven to paint, that inspiration is really beside the point. It’s about doing the work.
I am something of a bricklayer, a builder of paintings. However, my materials are not bricks and mortar, they are canvas and paint, and my tools are my hands, brushes, knives, and scrapers. To build the paintings I don’t follow a blueprint, preferring, rather, to rely on my eyes, my guts, and my faith. I raise the paintings and I knock them down, over and over again. I make a set of deliberate strokes that could constitute a painting, then I wipe through those marks, blurring and changing them in unpredictable and uncontrollable ways. Then, again, I apply the paint and blur, paint and blur, until eventually I take control of the painting, fine tuning it until it says what I need it to say, always allowing those wonderful accidents of paint to show through.
There is a balance to be struck between controlling the painting and giving myself over to the mystery of the unconscious, which is where the new, the unsafe, and the worthwhile work originates. If I don’t allow for that unconscious force to have a voice in the process, the painting has no life, and the work holds no interest for me.
It is not unlike how I live my life: moving slowly and deliberately with engaged eyes and mind, and working with discipline while being open to the unexpected and awed by the inexplicable. This element of surprise and awe is what makes the whole enterprise worth bothering with. And at the heart of it all is that internal combustion engine--the drive to create.
