Perceiving Space:

paintings by Patrick McCay and Marie Vickerilla

Deer, Deer II, acrylic on canvas, 60" x 72"

Patrick McCay

Untitled, oil on canvas, 20" x 20"

Marie Vickerilla

Perceiving Space

2005 Oct 7 - Nov 20

Opening Reception for the Artists: Saturday, Oct 8, 5 - 7 pm

Originally from Scotland, Patrick McCay’s exhibition history includes London’s Royal Academy, The Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, The Edinburgh Royal Academy, and the London Institute, among others. His work is collected by numerous corporate and private collectors, including Chace-Randall Gallery owner/director Zoe Randall. “The last body of work that I saw of Patrick’s was his piano series, exhibiting in Savannah, GA,” says Randall, who met McCay in Savannah and wrote about his work for Art Papers, Atlanta. “I’ve followed Patrick’s career for ten years, and am so excited about exhibiting his work in the Catskills,” she adds.

McCay’s newest body of work charts his response to the landscape and familiar domestic iconography in acrylic on canvas. The work is clearly whimsical, his canvases peppered with almost an irreverent play of domestic items and theatricality. “The nostalgic imagery appears to facilitate the clarity I seek and the landscape, its people, geography, vegetation, animal life and places that appear to contain a bounty,” says the artist. “The work represents the first few chapters of my engagement to my new surroundings,” McCay adds, referring to his recent move to New England, where he serves as Dean of Fine Arts at The New Hampshire Institute of Art.

Margaretville artist Marie Vickerilla also has an impressive exhibition history, including the Simon Gallery, Morristown, NJ, Roxbury Arts Group, Allentown Art Museum, Allentown, PA, and the National Small Works Exhibition, Schoharie, NY, where she received a juried Honorable Mention. Like McCay, Vickerilla is well-collected publicly and privately.

Working in oil on canvas, in graphite or on paper, Vickerilla’s new work is at once complex and minimalist. One of Catskill Mountain’s finest abstract painters, Vickerilla refers to her work as an “ongoing process helped along by time, the materials [she] uses, daily events, silence, and living in the woods.” “Painting runs along a parallel line with life. Every mark put down, rubbed away and brought back are similar to events that happen in our lives; are put in our memory; add up and are brought back to create who we are,” says the artist.

“I’ve had the honor to see much of the work in this exhibition evolve between visits to Marie’s studio. It’s been my joy,” says gallery owner Randall.

Vickerilla holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Milton Avery Graduate School of the Arts, Bard College, Annandale-on-Hudson, NY. McCay holds a Master of Fine Arts degree from Glasgow School of Art, Scotland, and a second Master in Fine Arts from the University of Notre Dame. Both artists are the recipients of numerous grants and awards for their work in the Fine Arts.

Please call 845.676.4901 or email zoe@chacerandallgallery.com for more information.