D E M I R O R NICOLE CHESNEY D E M I R O R

Exhibition on view August 2018

DEMIROR | Latin translation; to wonder (I wonder how / why), to be amazed, utterly astonished My work explores the relationship between light, space, visual perception, and imagination. Mirrors represent the human desire to see and reflect that which is desired. My paintings reveal to the viewer their own imagined space — a desirous, inner landscape or an unknowable, future dreamscape. –NC Brim | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 36” x 48” x 1” | 2018 | $ 38,000. Arose | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 32” x 48” x 1” | 2018 | $ 34,000. Divum | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 54” x 60” x 1” | 2018 | $ 65,000. Chesney’s paintings are entirely impossible to capture in photography. They can only be experienced to be appreciated. With two Chesney’s in my personal collection, I have the joy and privilege of living with her work in addition to representing this career for which my endorsement could not be higher. –Andria Friesen Aphros 3 | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 36” x 24” x 1” | 2018 | $ 19,000. Gleam | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 30” x 36” x 1” | 2018 | $ 25,000. Billow | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 30” x 63” x 1” | 2018 | $ 42,000. NICOLE CHESNEY: A MEDITATION ON LIGHT AND COLOR Sabina Dana Plasse | SVPN Magazine August 2018

To experience the latest work of Nicole Chesney is to lose oneself to a dream or somnambulistic state of mind with the longing or craving of beauty and serenity. Her newest exhibition, Demiror, which means a state of desire and admire, opens at the Friesen Gallery as a solo exhibition in early August. It is the result of more than a year’s dedication to an intense and precise art process that without fail embraces and captures the imagination. “Chesney’s paintings are entirely impossible to capture in photography,” says Andria Friesen, Friesen Gallery owner. “They can only be experienced to be appreciated. With two Chesney’s in my personal collection, I have the joy and privilege of living with her work in addition to representing this career for which my endorsement could not be higher.” Chesney’s decision-making and work ethic are both painstakingly precise and directed. However, she is the first to recognize that she cannot overburden her creative method because otherwise she believes she is making a product not a unique and original piece of art. “My work has a very distinctive look and approach,” explains Chesney. “I am always vigilant for the difference between a continued investigation of a really distinct idea and repeating oneself. This body of work is perhaps the most exuberant I have ever presented. The title speaks to every painting.” The art Chesney creates comes from the devotion of her entire being and existence. Her marriage of glass, metal, color, and proportion from every physical angle begs attention and appreciation. Chesney’s process and art ethic is a discipline of many facets from construction and layering of materials to perception of space. Behind every panel, Chesney creates exists an aluminum armature supporting her surface that has been created from layers of oil paint on etched, mirrored glass. She works alone but, on an as needed basis, will enlist contractors who know how and what she wants as they have been part of her team for 15 years. “My studio is a painter’s studio only where I paint on glass,” she says. “I create between 10 to 15 works a year. Within my work spectrum, there is time committed to commissions and, of course, time for my self-directed art for exhibitions.” Chesney explains that her commissioned work is always a time to engage with a collector. Large-scale paintings are mostly commissions because architectural scale works are often site-specific. “I have a collaborative relationship with DuPont for architectural projects in public environments,” says Chesney. “With those pieces, the aesthetic is true to my work, but as objects their fabrication process is fundamentally different than what I have on exhibition. These works have to survive in a corporate lobby or trafficked public spaces.” Part scientist and part creator, Chesney’s love for the material she uses is a hint from her past background in sculpture. The material language and the metaphors of her art life, past and present, contribute to all her pieces, which she considers integral to her work. Whether it is the influence and her nod to Abstract Expressionism within her art or admired artists including James McNeil Whistler, J.M.W. Turner, or Mark Rothko, Chesney is subtle in presentation but ultimately overwhelming in beauty. “I work on etched mirrors,” she reveals. “This work, at its most elemental, is about notions of reflection and introspection, which is conveyed within a visceral perception of landscape, mostly because it is more of a universal experience not just my own. My mirrors don’t reflect an image, and this is a deliberate choice. It’s not paramount to me that all of these things come across to a viewer. The experience of viewing my work in person presents an ephemeral and kinetic relationship between a viewer and the art.” There’s a balance between all the advance considerations and preparation that informs Chesney’s work because of the nature of the materials she uses, which are incredibly unforgiving. “The way the panels are fabricated, it takes months before that piece of glass is on the wall, and before I can begin to paint on it,” she says. “There are many decisions and technical processes that happen even though the work is minimal. The more minimal you want to make something, it becomes exponentially more difficult for every decision to follow.” For Demiror, Chesney has searched for wonder, to be astonished, and be amazed for this body of work to express. It’s a major exhibition for her literally and figuratively because she wanted to present a visually quenching body of work where color is a predominant factor. “I cannot alter a panel once it is fabricated, but I can alter my approach to color while painting” Chesney reveals. “I have never done this before. It’s something very light and lyrical to these particular paintings. I want you to feel like you’re diving into something or being enveloped.” Chesney titled the works in Demiror without any one particular experience in mind. These large oil paintings on acid-etched and mirrored glass have titles reflecting a feeling or mood such as Divum meaning “sky, open air,” Serenus, “an expanse of calm sea or clear sky” or Lucet, which means, “to shine.” She does not want an entire life’s work of paintings that are untitled, which has led her to her attraction to Latin root words for titles. “To me, that is disingenuous because we always use language somehow to identify things that are different from another,” says Chesney, “I like to discover interesting words, which conceptually support my work, but they don’t initially lead the viewer. It shouldn’t matter if you know the title or not. A work of art does not exist without a viewer.” Arise 2 | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 48” x 48” x 1” | 2018 | $ 48,000. Chesney uses layers of oil paint on a surface of acid-etched mirrored glass to create a reflective, luminous and near hypnotic end-result. The works are not literal depictions of a specific skyscape or landscape, and this is not her aim. Her paintings can appear to be a section of a cloud in close-up, or they can represent a distant sky. In this contradiction, allusion is made to Bachelard’s idea that “a space that has lost its horizons draws in on itself.” Like the vast sky that we look into, and the borderless space of the dream, there is no perspective and there are no moorings in Chesney’s work. –Tina Oldknow, Former Curator of Modern Glass, The Corning Museum of Glass [paraphrased] Serenus | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 32” x 48” x 1” | 2017 | $ 34,000. Lucet | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 48” x 48” x 1” | 2018 | $ 48,000. Ardor 2 | oil painting on acid-etched and mirrored glass | 40” x 80” x 1” | 2018 | $ 65,000. NICOLE CHESNEY BORN 1971 New Jersey

EDUCATION 2000 Master of Arts, Visual Arts (by Research), Canberra School of Art, The Australian National University 1997 Bachelor of Fine Arts, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts 1992-94 California College of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, California

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS 2018 Demiror, Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho 2017 Aubade, Gallery NAGA, Boston, Massachusetts Galerie B, Baden-Baden, Germany 2016 Lustrare, Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho (e-catalogue) 2015 Afterlight, Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho (e-catalogue) 2014 Mirari, Gallery NAGA, Boston, Massachusetts Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho 2011 Lux, Heller Gallery, New York, New York 2008 Heller Gallery, New York, New York Galerie B, Baden-Baden, Germany 2007 Volo, Heller Gallery, New York, New York 2006 Sky / Water, Fuller Craft Museum, Brockton, Massachusetts 2005 Between Glances, Heller Gallery, New York, New York Sky / Water, Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea 2004 R. Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri 2003 R. Duane Reed Gallery, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida 2002 Between light and matter, Chappell Gallery, New York, New York Sky / Water, Chappell Gallery, Boston, Massachusetts SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS 2017 40th Anniversary: Artists A-K, Gallery NAGA, Boston, Massachusetts Recent Acquisitions, The Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island 2016 Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Kore Glass for the New Millennium: Masterworks from the Kaplan-Ostergaard Collection, The Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, California (catalogue) Color and Light, Embassy of the United States, Panama City, Panama (catalogue) Korean Galleries Art Fair, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea American Art: 1945 to the Present, Mobile Museum of Art, Mobile, Alabama 2015 Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea Dynamic Conversations, South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Massachusetts (catalogue) Masterpieces in Glass: What They Face, Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea 2014 Landscape, abstracted, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts (through June, 2018) Form from Fire, Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii Glass Today: Contemporary Innovations, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut (catalogue) Filtered, Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho Surfaces, Paine Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea 2013 Locally Made, RISD Museum, Providence, Rhode Island Ellipses, Bakalar Gallery, Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts 10 Years, Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea (catalogue) 2012 Approaching Volume, Gallery NAGA, Boston, Massachusetts Eclats, Musee Wurth, Erstein, France (catalogue) 20 Years, Galerie B, Baden-Baden, Germany 2011 The Wall, Friesen Gallery, Sun Valley, Idaho Field of Vision: Artists Explore Place, Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin Water, Sand, Sky, The Bristol Art Museum, Bristol, Rhode Island SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS CONT. 2010 NetWorks, The Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island (catalogue) Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea Transformation 6: Contemporary Works in Glass, The Hunter Museum of American Art, Chattanooga, Tennessee (traveling exhibition, catalogue) Fifty Years of Contemporary Glass: Art, Craft, or Otherwise?, The Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky 2009 Rising Stars of the 21st Century, Museum of American Glass, Millville, New Jersey 2008 Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea 2007 The Elizabeth R. Raphael Founder’s Prize Exhibition, Society for Contemporary Craft, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (traveling exhibition) CCA: A Legacy in Studio Glass, San Francisco Museum of Craft + Design, San Francisco, California 2006 The Bombay Sapphire Prize 2006, Studio 95, London, England (international traveling exhibition) Korean International Art Fair, Seoul, Korea, presented by Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea 2005 Magnificent Extravagance: Artists and Opulence, Racine Art Museum, Racine, Wisconsin Seeds of Light, Canberra School of Art Gallery, Canberra, Australia 2004 Intersection, Bullseye Connection Gallery, Portland, Oregon Palm Beach Contemporary, presented by R. Duane Reed Gallery, St. Louis, Missouri 2003 Fresh!, Heller Gallery, New York, New York ARTform, International Pavilion, West Palm Beach, Florida 2002 Luminosity, Quadrivium Gallery, Sydney, Australia Glass Palimpsest, Sarah Doyle Gallery, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island Between 2 Spaces - Air/Liquid/Solid, Jam Factory Gallery, Adelaide, Australia 2000 Essentially Canberra, Earl Lu Gallery, Singapore (international traveling exhibition, catalogue) Learning to Breathe, Foyer Gallery, Canberra School of Art, Canberra, Australia1999 Light Through Skin, Pentimenti Gallery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 1998 Aperto Vetro - International New Glass 1998, Venice, Italy (catalogue) SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS CONT. 1998 North American Glass 1998, The Guilford Handcraft Center, Guilford, Connecticut 1997 Young Glass International 1997, Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark (catalogue)

SELECTED AWARDS, COMMISSIONS, AND HONORS 2016 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Summer Party Benefit Print Artist 2015 Commencement Ceremony Alumni Address, Massachusetts College of Art 2013 Massachusetts College of Art, Public Art Commission, Boston, Massachusetts 2011 7 World Trade Center, Commission with private funds, New York, New York, Installed 2013 2010 The Wells Fargo Center, Commission with private funds, Norfolk, Virginia 2009 The Wheeler School Public Art Initiative Commission with private funds, Providence, Rhode Island 2007 The Palm Springs Art Museum, Commission with private funds, Palm Springs, California 2005 The Corning Museum of Glass Rakow Commission, Corning, New York 2004 UrbanGlass Award for New Talent, Brooklyn, New York 2003 Artist in Residence, The Studio of The Corning Museum of Glass 2001 The Jutta Cuny-Franz Foundation Supporting Award, Düsseldorf, Germany 2000 Glass Art Society Conference Takako Sano Scholarship 1999 Canberra School of Art Drawing Prize Ausglass Conference Student Award, Juror: John Perreault 1998 Canberra School of Art Graduate Award David Thomas Foundation Travel Grant, Australia 1997 Art School Alliance Trust Fund Award, Massachusetts College of Art Honorable Mention, Elusive Mind, Copenhagen and Elsinore, Denmark SELECTED ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS Color and Light, Art in Embassies Exhibition, United States Embassy Panama, 2017 The Chazan Collection at The RISD Museum, Rhode Island School of Design Museum of Art, 2016 Glass for the New Millennium: Masterworks from the Kaplan-Ostergaard Collection, Crocker Art Museum, 2016 “Ethereal Afterlight,” Martha McGuinness, SVPN, August 2015 Dynamic Conversations, Chris Rifkin, South Shore Art Center, Cohasset, Massachusetts, 2015 Collecting Contemporary Glass, Tina Oldknow, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2014 “Critics’ picks: Theater, arts,” Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, October 22, 2014 “Opportunities for Art Collectors,” Peter S. Green, The Wall Street Journal, September 22, 2014 Glass Today: 21st Century Innovations, New Britain Museum of America Art, 2014 “The Glass Dreamscape,” Elizabeth Lorenz, Providence Monthly, June 2014 “America Reflected,” Leah Triplett, Glass Quarterly, Summer 2014 New Glass Review 35, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2014 “Arts Review,” Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, January 28, 2014 10 Years - Gallery Sklo, Gallery Sklo, Seoul, Korea, 2013 “Arts Review,” Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, October 17, 2012 Eclats!, Bettina Tschumi, Musee Wurth, Erstein, France, 2011 “Old and New, On Location,” Martina Windels, Public Art Review, Fall/Winter, 2011 “Review: ‘Field of Vision’ at the Racine Art Museum,” Eddee Daniel, JSOnline, August 24, 2011 “‘The Wall’ at Friesen Gallery,” Michael Upchurch, The Seattle Times, June 20, 2011 “Arts Review,” Cate McQuaid, The Boston Globe, January 12, 2011 “Working Definition,” Daniel Combs, The Newport Mercury, November 24, 2010 “Networks 2009 - Rhode Island Artists Video Documentaries,” broadcast on Rhode Island Public Broadcast Television Station NetWorks 2009-10, exhibition catalog, published by AS220 and The Newport Art Museum, 2010 “Nicole Chesney: Welkin,” Martina Windels, Art New England, February/March, 2010 “Artistic Wall Feature,” Rita Catinella Orrell, Architectural Record, November 2009 “Traumwelten aus Wasser…,” Irene Schroder, Badisches Tagblatt, Germany, May 3, 2008

SELECTED ARTICLES AND PUBLICATIONS CONT. “Mystische Landschaften…,” Doris Steffens, Badisches Tagblatt, Germany, April 24, 2008 Contemporary Sculptures and Panels: Selections from The Corning Museum of Glass, Tina Oldknow, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2008 “Nicole Chesney: Sky / Water,” Francine Koslow Miller, Neues Glas, Spring 2007 25 Years of New Glass Review, Tina Oldknow, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2006 New Glass Review 27, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2006 “Review - Nicole Chesney ‘Between Glances’,” Robert C. Morgan, Glass, Summer 2005 “Interview: Nicole Chesney,” Oh Seung-hae, Privilege, Korea, June 2005 “Art Feature: Nicole Chesney,” Jisu Kim, Noblesse, Korea, June 2005 New Glass Review 26, The Corning Museum of Glass, 2005 “Glass Acts,” Nancy A. Ruhling, Art & Antiques, May 2004 “Art Review,” Kurt Shaw, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, August 10, 2003 New Glass Review 23, Neues Glas, Summer 2002 “Arts Review,” Christopher Mills, The Boston Phoenix, January 25, 2002 “Jutta Cuny-Franz Memorial Award 2001,” Dr. Helmut Ricke, Neues Glas, Fall 2001 “The Shooting Gallery,” Verity Newman, Sydney Hub, July 6, 2000 Art and the Brain II: Investigations into the Science of Art, Joseph Goguen, Imprint Academic, 2000 “Form and Process,” Graham Shearing, Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, April 2, 2000 “New Directions: Emerging Glass Artists in Australia,” Anna Grigson, Craft Arts International, number 47, 1999 Venezia Aperto Vetro - International New Glass 1998, Edited by Dan Klein, Electa, Milan, 1998 Essentially Canberra, exhibition catalog published by The Australian National University, 1998 “Drawing gets back to basics,” Kathleen Alien, Tucson Citizen Newspaper, August 21, 1997 Young Glass ‘97, Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark, 1997 “Making Their Marks,” Margaret Regan, Tucson Weekly, August 21-27, 1997 Elusive Mind, exhibition catalog edited by Cindi Laukes, 1997

SELECTED PUBLIC AND CORPORATE COLLECTIONS 7 World Trade Center, New York, New York Alinda Capital Partners, New York, New York Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Berkshire Partners, Boston, Massachusetts Boise Art Museum, Boise, Idaho Corning Museum of Glass, Corning, New York Fidelity Investments, Boston, Massachusetts Glasmuseum, Ebeltoft, Denmark Honolulu Museum of Art, Honolulu, Hawaii Massachusetts College of Art, Boston, Massachusetts Millennium Partners, Boston, Massachusetts MIRVAC Group, Melbourne, Australia Mobile Art Museum, Mobile, Alabama Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Montreal, Canada (Promised Gift) Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts Newport Art Museum, Newport, Rhode Island University of Arizona Medical Center, Tucson, Arizona Palm Springs Art Museum, Palm Springs, California Pilchuck Glass School, Print Archives, Stanwood, Washington Pureun Savings Bank, Seoul, South Korea Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, Rhode Island Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, *NEW ACQUISITION* Speed Art Museum, Louisville, Kentucky (Promised Gift) The Wells Fargo Center, Norfolk, Virginia Twin Focus Capital Partners, Boston, Massachusetts Wheeler School, Providence, Rhode Island Private Collections throughout the United States and Internationally CONTACT: ANDRIA FRIESEN [email protected]