Artist Gwyneth Scally

Gwyneth Scally - Artist Statement

The Descent of Fear

My work explores the vulnerability of the human body. Recently I have been thinking about the temporality of our physical lives, versus the endless continuum of heredity and the decent of humanity. The title The Descent of Fear puns the title of Charles Darwin’s famous book, The Descent of Man. Darwin argued that humanity is subject to evolution, shaped by genetic heredity and by the forces of natural selection. I am fascinated by Darwin’s theories, and by ideas of heredity…. Our genetics both shape and limit us, and yet sometimes these inherited limitations may be overcome, and we can remold ourselves. Sometimes these battles to conquer our genetic templates are the metaphoric struggles that echo through a lifetime, and become our individual narratives.

In this piece, a sort of fragile family tree is represented; my mother is depicted at the top of a vellum scroll, and a tree branch runs like an artery between us, which runs the length of the transparent sheet into my own hand, and my own face is depicted below. I am very close to my mother; this work represents a sort of tribute to the strengths that she has gifted me, and also acts as a sort of talisman against the shared genetic weaknesses that lurk beneath our skin; against the dark inheritances of family disease, family temperament, and other ancestral terrors.

This work is dedicated to Lorraine Camen DeRose Scally

My work explores the mind/body split that is intrinsic to the human experience as intellectual animals, a split that has been fundamental to both human discontent and to human dynamism throughout history. As a species, we have always felt awkward in our bodies; almost every major religion addresses the tending to, and the control of, the body: The massive issues and power of the pharmaceutical industry testify to our obsession with the vagaries and deterioration of the body; the legislative struggles of race, reproduction, and gender again deal with the social attempts to control the body. All of these struggles within our grand institutions are magnifications of the struggles within the individual, the lifelong struggle to resolve thought and emotion with the limitations of our corporeal selves. In the case of figurative artists, this mind/body struggle becomes not only the means of their work, but also the topic of their work. For me, this struggle also serves as my primary inspiration.

This work deals with the vulnerability of the human body. These pieces explore the horror and the humor of attempting to control a fragile and continually deteriorating corporeal form. My figurative works use bodily metaphor to describe cultural and psychological experience. The permeability of the skin to environmental nutrients and contaminants echoes the susceptibility of the individual to the nutrients and contaminants of cultural ideas, of prejudices and politics, of consumerism and fear. To this ends, I use underlying textures in my paintings that resemble the movement of fluids, or the surfaces of skin, tissues. The paintings’ surfaces have a living, animal quality in the gestural buildup of underlying mediums. In addition, the figures themselves wrestle with the nature of their skin, biting and pulling it, and struggling with its limitations.

As a figurative painter, I express the awkwardness of the human form. My figures are uncomfortable in their skins, in their environments, and seem vulnerable to the spaces and symbols that surround them. Often the individuals in my work are surrounded by, or incorporated with, animal forms; these forms remind us of the animal, biological nature of our human selves. Often these animals are tied, leashed, or suspended, suggesting elements in our own make-ups, and issues in our own psyches, to which we are inescapably bound.

Resume

Education

2008 M.F.A. Candidate, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ

1995 B.A., James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, Graduated Cum Laude

Exhibitions

Solo:

2007 Jelly, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2005 Jelly, The Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2005 The Cult of Man, Falk Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2004 Protection, The Pickled Art Center, Beijing, China
2002 Clean and Pure, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson AZ
2002 The Historic Hotel Congress Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2002 The Shemer Art Center, Scottsdale, AZ
2001 Central Arizona College Arts Gallery, Coolidge, AZ
2001 Featured Artist, East End Gallery, Telluride, CO
1999 Featured Artist, East End Gallery, Telluride, CO
1996 Joshua Wilton Gallery, Harrisonburg, VA
1996 Studio Art Exhibition Space, Harrisonburg, VA
1995 The Feminine Octopod, Zirkle House Artworks Gallery, Harrisonburg, VA

Group:

2007 Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN
2007 La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles, CA
2007 She Objects! II, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2006 Spilled, hpgrp Gallery, New York, NY
2005 (con) TEXT, G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2005 Behind Our Eye, Platform Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2005 The AP Tell Gallery, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ
2004 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2004 3Falk Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2004 Juxtapoz Magazine Group Exhibition, On Six Gallery, San Francisco, CA
2004 Contemporary Forum Materials Grant Winners Exhibition, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
2004 What’s Love Got To Do With It; Perceptions of Relationships and Solitude, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2004 Building a Collection 2004 Exhibition Event, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ
2004 Ready, Set, D’Art, Exhibition Event, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2004 Tucson Artists in Underpants, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2003 Drawn, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ.
2003 Lights, Camera, Action, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ
2003 Black and White, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2003 East End Gallery, Telluride, Colorado.
2003 Hotel Congress Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2002 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
2002 New Works in Paint, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ
2002 Alamo Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2002 Group Exhibition traveling to Italy and Mexico. Catalogue available.
2002 Temple of Music and Art, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2002 Ready, Set, D’Art, Fundraiser, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ
2002 The Bread Bed Installation Exhibition, Small Planet Bakery, Tucson AZ
2001 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ
Running Start Exhibition Space, Tucson, AZ
2001 Embodied, Gallery 299, Tucson, AZ
2000 Annual Member's Exhibition, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ, Dinnerware Contemporary Art Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2000 Where the Wild Things Are, RAW Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2000 Metroform Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2000 Tucson Pima Arts Council; Grant Awards Show, Apparatus Gallery, Tucson, AZ
2000 Canyon Ranch Resort, Tucson, AZ
2000 Derailer Exhibition Space, Tucson AZ
2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ
1999 Running Start Exhibition Space, Tucson, AZ
1994 Zirkle House Galleries, Harrisonburg, VA

Awards

2007 Pouch Cove Foundation Artists’ Residency, Newfoundland, Canada
2006 Ruth Chenven Foundation Grant, $1,000
2005 George Sugarman Foundation Project Grant, $2,500
2005 Tucson Pima Arts Council Project Grant, $600
2004 Community Foundation of Southern Arizona Buffalo Exchange Visual Arts Award, $10,000
2004 Red Gate Gallery of Beijing, China, Visual Artists’ Residency
2004 Arizona Commission on the Arts Travel Grant, $600
2004 Tucson Pima Arts Council International Exchange Mini Grant, $500
2003 Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum Artists Materials Fund Grant, $1,200 and Exhibition
2000 Tucson Pima Arts Council Visual Arts Award, Honorable Mention, $200
1995 James Madison Art Achievement Award, $1000

Professional Experience

2007 Instructor, Career Development class, University of Arizona
2002 Instructor, Painting classes through the Arts In Reality program
1999 - 02 Assistant to Mark Rossi, professional sculptor
2000 Vice-President of the Member-Artists' Volunteer Board, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ
2000 Chair of the Exhibitions Committee, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ
2000 Co-Chair of Annual Auction Fundraiser Committee, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ
1999 Board Member, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ
1998 Assisted public works artist Simon Donovan
1996-97 Assistant Director of Le KAE Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ
1996-97 Volunteer docent at Arizona State University Art Museum.

Publications

2007 Review, Phoenix Magazine, Phoenix, AZ
2007 Interview, The New Times, Phoenix, AZ
2006 New American Paintings, vol. #66
2004 Interview broadcast KUAT Channel 6 “Arizona Illustrated” Interview, Arizona Daily Star, June 4
2004 Interview, 110 Degrees, Issue 4, Summer
2003 Color Barrier, Group Exhibition Review, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 20, #11
2003 New Meaning for Everyday Items, The Arizona Republic, January 25
2002 The Bread Bed, City Week section, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 19, #32
2002 The Bread Bed, Channel 13 evening news segment, November 16
2002 “Best Visual Artist” The Tucson Weekly’s 16th Annual Best of Tucson Issue, vol. 19, #30
2002 Muck and Mirrors, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 19, #12
2001 Two-page feature article in The Desert Leaf newspaper, Tucson, AZ
2001 Television Interview in Studio, conducted by Kim Monke, Channel 12
2001 The Arts District Quarterly (Cover) Tucson Arts Partnership
2000 Half-hour interview representing Dinnerware Arts on Tucson Cable TV
1999 Exhibit review in The Tucson Weekly
1995 Full-page review of The Feminine Octopod, The Breeze, Harrisonburg, VA



	Gwyneth Scally - Artist Statement The Descent of Fear My work explores the vulnerability of the human body. Recently I have been thinking about the temporality of our physical lives, versus the endless continuum of heredity and the decent of humanity. The title The Descent of Fear puns the title of Charles Darwin’s famous book, The Descent of Man. Darwin argued that humanity is subject to evolution, shaped by genetic heredity and by the forces of natural selection. I am fascinated by Darwin’s theories, and by ideas of heredity…. Our genetics both shape and limit us, and yet sometimes these inherited limitations may be overcome, and we can remold ourselves. Sometimes these battles to conquer our genetic templates are the metaphoric struggles that echo through a lifetime, and become our individual narratives. In this piece, a sort of fragile family tree is represented; my mother is depicted at the top of a vellum scroll, and a tree branch runs like an artery between us, which runs the length of the transparent sheet into my own hand, and my own face is depicted below. I am very close to my mother; this work represents a sort of tribute to the strengths that she has gifted me, and also acts as a sort of talisman against the shared genetic weaknesses that lurk beneath our skin; against the dark inheritances of family disease, family temperament, and other ancestral terrors. This work is dedicated to Lorraine Camen DeRose Scally My work explores the mind/body split that is intrinsic to the human experience as intellectual animals, a split that has been fundamental to both human discontent and to human dynamism throughout history. As a species, we have always felt awkward in our bodies; almost every major religion addresses the tending to, and the control of, the body: The massive issues and power of the pharmaceutical industry testify to our obsession with the vagaries and deterioration of the body; the legislative struggles of race, reproduction, and gender again deal with the social attempts to control the body. All of these struggles within our grand institutions are magnifications of the struggles within the individual, the lifelong struggle to resolve thought and emotion with the limitations of our corporeal selves. In the case of figurative artists, this mind/body struggle becomes not only the means of their work, but also the topic of their work. For me, this struggle also serves as my primary inspiration. This work deals with the vulnerability of the human body. These pieces explore the horror and the humor of attempting to control a fragile and continually deteriorating corporeal form. My figurative works use bodily metaphor to describe cultural and psychological experience. The permeability of the skin to environmental nutrients and contaminants echoes the susceptibility of the individual to the nutrients and contaminants of cultural ideas, of prejudices and politics, of consumerism and fear. To this ends, I use underlying textures in my paintings that resemble the movement of fluids, or the surfaces of skin, tissues. The paintings’ surfaces have a living, animal quality in the gestural buildup of underlying mediums. In addition, the figures themselves wrestle with the nature of their skin, biting and pulling it, and struggling with its limitations. As a figurative painter, I express the awkwardness of the human form. My figures are uncomfortable in their skins, in their environments, and seem vulnerable to the spaces and symbols that surround them. Often the individuals in my work are surrounded by, or incorporated with, animal forms; these forms remind us of the animal, biological nature of our human selves. Often these animals are tied, leashed, or suspended, suggesting elements in our own make-ups, and issues in our own psyches, to which we are inescapably bound. Resume Education 2008 M.F.A. Candidate, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 1995 B.A., James Madison University, Harrisonburg, VA, Graduated Cum Laude Exhibitions Solo: 2007 Jelly, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ 2005 Jelly, The Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ 2005 The Cult of Man, Falk Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2004 Protection, The Pickled Art Center, Beijing, China 2002 Clean and Pure, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson AZ 2002 The Historic Hotel Congress Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2002 The Shemer Art Center, Scottsdale, AZ 2001 Central Arizona College Arts Gallery, Coolidge, AZ 2001 Featured Artist, East End Gallery, Telluride, CO 1999 Featured Artist, East End Gallery, Telluride, CO 1996 Joshua Wilton Gallery, Harrisonburg, VA 1996 Studio Art Exhibition Space, Harrisonburg, VA 1995 The Feminine Octopod, Zirkle House Artworks Gallery, Harrisonburg, VA Group: 2007 Memphis College of Art, Memphis, TN 2007 La Luz de Jesus, Los Angeles, CA 2007 She Objects! II, Conrad Wilde Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2006 Spilled, hpgrp Gallery, New York, NY 2005 (con) TEXT, G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 2005 Behind Our Eye, Platform Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2005 The AP Tell Gallery, Grand Canyon University, Phoenix, AZ 2004 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 2004 3Falk Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2004 Juxtapoz Magazine Group Exhibition, On Six Gallery, San Francisco, CA 2004 Contemporary Forum Materials Grant Winners Exhibition, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ 2004 What’s Love Got To Do With It; Perceptions of Relationships and Solitude, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ 2004 Building a Collection 2004 Exhibition Event, Phoenix Art Museum, Phoenix, AZ 2004 Ready, Set, D’Art, Exhibition Event, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ 2004 Tucson Artists in Underpants, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2003 Drawn, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ. 2003 Lights, Camera, Action, Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ 2003 Black and White, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2003 East End Gallery, Telluride, Colorado. 2003 Hotel Congress Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2002 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ 2002 New Works in Paint, Mesa Arts Center, Mesa, AZ 2002 Alamo Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2002 Group Exhibition traveling to Italy and Mexico. Catalogue available. 2002 Temple of Music and Art, Etherton Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2002 Ready, Set, D’Art, Fundraiser, Tucson Museum of Art, Tucson, AZ 2002 The Bread Bed Installation Exhibition, Small Planet Bakery, Tucson AZ 2001 G2 Gallery, Scottsdale, AZ Running Start Exhibition Space, Tucson, AZ 2001 Embodied, Gallery 299, Tucson, AZ 2000 Annual Member's Exhibition, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ, Dinnerware Contemporary Art Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2000 Where the Wild Things Are, RAW Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2000 Metroform Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2000 Tucson Pima Arts Council; Grant Awards Show, Apparatus Gallery, Tucson, AZ 2000 Canyon Ranch Resort, Tucson, AZ 2000 Derailer Exhibition Space, Tucson AZ 2000 Museum of Contemporary Art, Tucson, AZ 1999 Running Start Exhibition Space, Tucson, AZ 1994 Zirkle House Galleries, Harrisonburg, VA Awards 2007 Pouch Cove Foundation Artists’ Residency, Newfoundland, Canada 2006 Ruth Chenven Foundation Grant, $1,000 2005 George Sugarman Foundation Project Grant, $2,500 2005 Tucson Pima Arts Council Project Grant, $600 2004 Community Foundation of Southern Arizona Buffalo Exchange Visual Arts Award, $10,000 2004 Red Gate Gallery of Beijing, China, Visual Artists’ Residency 2004 Arizona Commission on the Arts Travel Grant, $600 2004 Tucson Pima Arts Council International Exchange Mini Grant, $500 2003 Phoenix Art Museum Contemporary Forum Artists Materials Fund Grant, $1,200 and Exhibition 2000 Tucson Pima Arts Council Visual Arts Award, Honorable Mention, $200 1995 James Madison Art Achievement Award, $1000 Professional Experience 2007 Instructor, Career Development class, University of Arizona 2002 Instructor, Painting classes through the Arts In Reality program 1999 - 02 Assistant to Mark Rossi, professional sculptor 2000 Vice-President of the Member-Artists' Volunteer Board, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ 2000 Chair of the Exhibitions Committee, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ 2000 Co-Chair of Annual Auction Fundraiser Committee, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ 1999 Board Member, Dinnerware Contemporary Arts, Tucson, AZ 1998 Assisted public works artist Simon Donovan 1996-97 Assistant Director of Le KAE Galleries, Scottsdale, AZ 1996-97 Volunteer docent at Arizona State University Art Museum. Publications 2007 Review, Phoenix Magazine, Phoenix, AZ 2007 Interview, The New Times, Phoenix, AZ 2006 New American Paintings, vol. #66 2004 Interview broadcast KUAT Channel 6 “Arizona Illustrated” Interview, Arizona Daily Star, June 4 2004 Interview, 110 Degrees, Issue 4, Summer 2003 Color Barrier, Group Exhibition Review, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 20, #11 2003 New Meaning for Everyday Items, The Arizona Republic, January 25 2002 The Bread Bed, City Week section, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 19, #32 2002 The Bread Bed, Channel 13 evening news segment, November 16 2002 “Best Visual Artist” The Tucson Weekly’s 16th Annual Best of Tucson Issue, vol. 19, #30 2002 Muck and Mirrors, The Tucson Weekly, vol. 19, #12 2001 Two-page feature article in The Desert Leaf newspaper, Tucson, AZ 2001 Television Interview in Studio, conducted by Kim Monke, Channel 12 2001 The Arts District Quarterly (Cover) Tucson Arts Partnership 2000 Half-hour interview representing Dinnerware Arts on Tucson Cable TV 1999 Exhibit review in The Tucson Weekly 1995 Full-page review of The Feminine Octopod, The Breeze, Harrisonburg, VA





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