FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 24, 2024
Contact: Elizabeth Carey at RNAC.director@gmail.com

ELEMENTAL: Abstractions for Unsettled Times

Location: The Cultural Center at Rocky Neck, 6 Wonson Street, Gloucester, MA
Dates: October 5 – November 17, 2024
Opening Reception: Saturday, October 5, 2024, 4 to 6 PM
Gallery Hours: Friday-Sunday, Noon – 5 PM, and Monday, October 14, Noon – 5 PM

Gloucester, MA – The Rocky Neck Art Colony (RNAC) is proud to present ELEMENTAL: Abstractions for Unsettled Times, a new exhibition curated by Meredith Anderson and Ginger Myhaver at the Cultural Center at Rocky Neck. This show features six established artists from Gloucester and greater Essex County, working in minimalist abstraction. Each artist engages deeply with materials, form, and space, resulting in works that exude warmth, spirituality, urgency, grief and wit.

Artists Mary Bucci McCoy, Helen Duncan, Seth Goldfine, Ann Ledy, Joe Lovasco, and Constance Vallis push the boundaries of abstraction through rigorous practice. Their works, whether exploring geometric shapes, elemental materials, or finely-honed surfaces, offer more than cold formalism; they resonate with human experience and the unsettled times in which we live.

About the Artists:

Mary Bucci McCoy offers works from two series of luminous non-objective paintings that explore her somatic experience and meditative presence during their making and in her daily communion with the natural world.

Helen Duncan’s series of ceramic orbs reflect experiences of loss through their fractured, jagged forms, while simultaneously conveying the possibility of finding peace within a ruptured whole.

Seth Goldfine, working primarily in wood and aluminum, creates sculptures that explore and defy dynamics of tension, gravity, compression and balance.

Ann Ledy’s painted aluminum sculptures and gridded paintings on paper, velum and glass allude to the building blocks of modern architecture and to the urban environments that have inspired her.

Joe Lovasco takes inspiration from his young son’s toys and spirit of curiosity to make intimately scaled painted wooden sculptures that simultaneously delight and disorient.

Constance Vallis’s enigmatic encaustic paintings, meticulously built up of collaged imagery and materials, are inspired and driven by essential truths found within and in relation to the natural world.

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The exhibition invites visitors to explore the edges and oscillations between clarity and chaos, offering artworks as touchstones for navigating our unsettled times.

Join us for the Opening Reception on Saturday, October 5, from 4-6 PM to view the art, meet the artists, and enjoy refreshments.

RNAC, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, supports the arts through exhibitions, workshops, and cultural events. Our spaces, including The Cultural Center at Rocky Neck, The Salted Cod Arthouse and Wine Bar, and Cove Gallery, are open to the public. For more information, visit www.rockyneckartcolony.org or call 978-515-7004.