ALice Denision: Posy Riot

On View: November 11 – December 17, 2022
Reception: Friday, November 11, 5 – 7 pm
The artist will be present:
Saturday, November 12, 1-3 pm

“I began this work in 2020, during the Covid pandemic, in my new studio in Florence, Massachusetts. Each one is a further step into the Pangloss series as I follow Candide’s advice and cultivate my garden. While the earlier Pangloss work was essentially orderly, (a garden in May), this group began like a garden in October, with plants encroaching on each other, intertwined, and overgrown. This is easiest to see in the two round works, where the series began. (I was still listening to news on the radio when I painted them, and as I look at them now, I think of my painter friend who said, “paintings don’t lie.”) 

The reference to tapestry is here still, but instead of putting paint down and leaving it, in most of the pieces I am lifting or wiping some of it back off, glazing over it and working new layers on top. This makes for ghosts, and with subsequent layers, that creates the illusion of depth. The works that are layered like this can be looked into, though they still have a flat surface. I keep the paint very thin; in many works the texture of the linen is visible, usually because a prior image vanished. Some pieces are landscape-like, a somewhat different direction but in keeping with my overall goal of creating work with complexity, rhythm, and space to get lost in.” - Alice Denison