MAUREEN GALLACE

Maureen Gallace a painter of small unpopulated landscapes, with a particular focus on the New England coastline. Picking out humble and deserted vernacular buildings, Gallace paints windowless white houses, barns and beach shacks framed by trees or overlooking the seashore. These scenes seem idyllic but are tinged with a sense of unease – emptied of people, they seem solemn, lonely. Yet there is a solace in Gallace’s attentiveness, her repetitiveness: from the soft glow of evening sun to the cold glare of snow in winter, Gallace’s observations of her environs are distilled into something mesmerising. Her titles specify geographic points or temporal moments, and yet the feeling captured by these paintings, despite their intimate scale, is one of timelessness, vastness and universality. Critics have drawn connections between Gallace’s work and various figures from the history of American painting, and also poetry. But though she may share certain lyrical concerns with artistic and literary forebears, Gallace’s paintings are the product of a singular devoted vision, each one a unique rumination on stillness and structure.