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