Nicole Chesney

Glass Art

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Nicole Chesney’s Mirari at Gallery NAGA, Boston

Nicole Chesney’s Mirari at Gallery NAGA, Boston

Nicole Chesney’s Mirari at Gallery NAGA, Boston
October 2014

Gallery NAGA is pleased to present our first major solo exhibition of paintings by Nicole Chesney, whose work is currently featured in a show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Landscape Abstracted.

Nicole Chesney: Mirari is on exhibition from October 10 to November 8.  A reception for the artist and the public will be held at the gallery on Friday, October 10 from 6 to 8 pm. 

Chesney is an abstract painter who uses flat sheets of glass as her surface. She began her non-traditional work with glass after having studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts, the Massachusetts College of Art and finally the Canberra School of Art at Australia National University. Never interested in sculpting glass, Chesney used the medium as a jumping off point for her paintings.  After taking classes in jewelry and print-making, she explored the material of glass for its ability to manipulate light.  “I didn’t study painting,” says Chesney.  “Like jewelry, my love affair with glass has to do with [its] precious, desirous qualities that really boil down to light.”   

In a 2014 issue of Glass Quarterly, Leah Triplett writes about Chesney.  “Her glass works are gesture-driven tableaus that explore the parameters of perception as well as the relationship of light and darkness to the human eye.  She expands this concentration by playing with the psychology of desire as it is manifested in materials, be they diamonds or cut glass.”

The title of Chesney’s show at NAGA is Mirari, a latin word meaning to marvel at or wonder.  Glass, with all its transformative qualities, is a surface onto which Chesney can add, subtract, and move oil paint around.  The difference lies in the reflective quality of glass.  Seen from one angle, her painting surfaces are matte and brushy, seen from another angle, they are reflective and elusive. Chesney is loading the surface with paint, then wiping away to reveal the layers beneath.  She does this multiple times to create sheer layers.  The glass itself is etched so that it has a tooth, or uneven quality that can grab and hold whatever oil is applied. 

Chesney’s paintings are divided between saturated, warm tones of purple, peach, and red, and cooler tones of blues, greens and whites.  Chesney uses her layers of feathery, light brushstrokes to create smooth gradients from thick to translucent and from light to dark.  Her brushstrokes leave traces of circular or criss-crossing paths on the surface of the glass.

Chesney recently completed large commissioned pieces that were installed at 7 World Trade Center in New York and the public space at the newresidence hall at Massachusetts College of Art.  Leah Triplett, in writing for Glass Quarterly, writes about Chesney’s commissioned work:

“In my work, I’ve deliberately chosen mirrors that have etched surfaces,” explains Chesney.  “There’s a lot of metaphor in that for me, about introspection, about not really being able to be objective about who we are.”  The “we” that constitutes Chesney’s audience is cut from a wide swath of the public and includes schoolchildren, bankers, construction crews, and elite collectors.  No matter their background, the visages of Chesney’s viewers shift with changes in light and perspective, which universalizes her audience as much as it particularizes the individual.  These works betray the artist’s hand in their heavily worked surfaces, but beckon the viewer past Chesney’s gesture and into a reflective plane in which the viewer sees themselves as meditated by the gaze of another.

Images of all work on exhibition can be seen at gallerynaga.com.


NChesney_Votum_2014

Votum

  • Votum

    Votum

    2014
    45 inches by 63 1/2 inches by 1 inch
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    Many layers of sheer oil paint are applied to the surface of an etched mirror and are uniquely responsive to ambient lighting conditions.
NChesney_Somnio_2014

Somnio

  • Somnio

    Somnio

    2014
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    36 inches by 82 inches by 1 inch

    Collection of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
  • Somnio

    Somnio

    2014
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    36 inches by 82 inches by 1 inch

    Collection of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC
  • Somnio

    Somnio

    2014
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    36 inches by 82 inches by 1 inch

    Collection of The Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, DC

Chesney_Altum_2014_01

Altum

 

  • Altum

    Altum

    2014
    45 inches by 60 inches by 1 inch
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    Many layers of sheer oil paint are applied to the surface of an etched mirror and are uniquely responsive to ambient lighting conditions.
Nicole_Chesney_Aver2_2014_view01

Aver 2

  • Aver 2

    Aver 2

    2014
    60 inches by 60 inches by 2 inches
    Oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass

    Many layers of sheer oil paint are applied to the surface of an etched mirror and are uniquely responsive to ambient lighting conditions.

Welkin_1_Nicole_Chesney

Sample Press Copy

Nicole Chesney’s Welkin, a large, four-panel glass work, permanently installed in the Nulman Lewis Student Center at the Wheeler School in Providence, is testament to the fact that no material is able to manipulate light the way glass can.

Chesney, a Providence glass artist, is known for her ephemeral paintings depicting water and sky on mirrored, acid-etched glass. Her works, often assembled from more than one pane, are not literal images of land- or seascapes. Rather, they act as an abstract of a place, intended to suggest a mood. They succeed  by conveying the effect of glaring sunlight reflecting off the sea on a hot, steamy summer’s day or suggesting the solid nothingness of dense, wool-like fog hanging heavy in the air.

 

Welkin_1_Nicole_Chesney
Nicole Chesney. Welkin. panels 96 x 54′, overall 8 x 20. Photo: Scott Lapham.

 

Chesney’s paintings inspire awe, drawing viewers in and seducing them to linger and relish the serene moment. They provide a place to escape, to lose oneself while savoring the immense silence and solitude. This also holds true for Welkin (which means “the vault of heaven”), completed by Chesney last fall as part of the Wheeler School’s public art initiative. The piece takes full advantage of the reflective qualities of the glass, enlivening the new gateway to the school’s dense campus. Set flush within a bluestone wall, the deep shades of cobalt blue and brilliant turquoise in the glass create the illusion of a panoramic view, complete with a fluffy, white cloud mass; a light blue sky; and a thick, dark horizon. No photograph can reproduce the light radiating from the panels, glowing as if the whole wall is backlit, reminiscent of an illuminated swimming pool at night.

For Chesney, who exhibits her work internationally, Welkin represents a career milestone. Not only is this the largest piece she has ever made (eight by twenty feet), it provided her with the  opportunity to experiment with an architectural glazing process-in which printed layers of plastic are laminated between two sheets of glass-in order to generate the image that complements Wheeler’s modern addition.

—Martina Windels

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