Dana Clancy : Viewing Space
Part of the NEW ENGLAND CURRENTS Series
May 21, 2008 — June 29, 2008
Rachael Arauz, Guest Curator
Gallery Talk Artist and Curator, Wednesday, May 28, Noon
Opening Reception Saturday, May 31, 7 - 9 p.m.
The Danforth Museum of Art is pleased to present Viewing Space, an exhibition of recent paintings by Boston artist Dana Clancy. The exhibition will be on view in the Swartz Family Gallery as part of the New England Current Series, from May 21 through June 29, 2008. On Wednesday, May 28 at noon, the artist and guest curator will speak about the work.
About the Artist
Dana Clancy is a painter and an Assistant Professor at Boston University's School of Visual Arts, College of Fine Arts. She received an M.F.A. in Painting from Boston University and a B.A. from Vassar College. Ms. Clancy has had a solo exhibition at Boston University and has exhibited her work in group exhibitions, including shows at the New Image Art Gallery, Los Angeles, Delta Axis at Marshall Arts, Memphis, Bowery Gallery, New York and Gallery 100, Saratoga Springs, NY. Her work has also been shown in New England at Green Street Gallery, the Boston Center for the Arts' Mills Gallery, FPAC Gallery, the South Shore Art Center, and ArtSPACE@16, and is in the permanent collection at the DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park.
Artist's web site: www.danaclancy.com.
About the Exhibit
Viewing Space premiers a series of paintings that take as their subject, dramatic new museum architecture such as the Tate Modern in London and the Museum of Modern Art in New York. In these works, Clancy often situates her viewer at the disorienting edge of balconies to foreground the spectacle of looking, and the ironic absence of paintings on the walls suggests the highly constructed nature of viewing art in these galleries. Clancy’s talented juxtapositions of rich, unexpected colors capture the abstract forms present in the soaring, empty lobbies and atriums of these museums, and shape both real and impossible spatial relationships for their museum-goers. Additional works in Viewing Space will include some portraits as well as smaller paintings that explore more intimate vignettes of figures within museum and domestic architecture. This project has been supported by a grant from the Artist Resource Trust.
About the Guest Curator
Guest curator Rachael Arauz, Ph.D. is a Boston-based independent curator and art historian. Her recent exhibitions include Keith Haring: Journey of the Radiant Baby for the Reading Public Museum in Reading, PA and the Fourth Annual Juried Summer Exhibition for the Tufts University Art Gallery.
Exhibition Press
“Her view is of the viewers”
By Denise Taylor, The Boston Globe, June 19, 2008
“Once again, Dana Clancy and her paintings are looking at us. In a 2005 show at Boston University's Sherman Gallery, the artist confronted us with portraits of subjects who stared right back from the canvas - some with binoculars. Before that, she painted webcam users who peered at the viewer through the Internet ether. And now, she is aiming to make us self-aware again.
In her solo show, "Viewing Space," at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Clancy steps back for a meta view of art by painting museum goers looking at art. All of the works are based on photographs she took at London's Tate Modern, and the Museum of Modern Art and the Guggenheim Museum in New York. . . . [Read more]
“Transforming voyeurism into art, Dana Clancy observes strangers in public places, capturing their encounters and reveries in probing paintings brimming with subdued tension.
Always the unseen spectator behind a column, she paints her subjects in museums looking at art, people or into space with a detached longing.
An assistant professor of painting at Boston University, the Milton resident is showing 21 intriguing paintings at the Danforth Museum of Art that reveal unexpected connections between their subjects and viewers. . . . [Read more]
Split Vista, 2006
oil and acrylic on canvas
24 x 48 inches
Written Material, 2006-2007
oil and acrylic on canvas
24 x 46 inches
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