Catharine Clark Gallery presents A Brief History of My So-Called Life, a solo exhibition of new paintings by Chester Arnold, on view in the South Gallery from June 6 - August 15, 2026. Join us for an opening reception on Saturday, June 6 from 3 - 5pm.
Artist statement:
After painting for more than half a century-despite all evolutions in an art world in continual flux-I find the classical virtues that attracted me so long ago to the practice of painting have given me ever deeper means of embracing life.
A relentless metaphorical drive has always guided what appears in my studio-and as time has presented its pageants of love, life, and death, these primal elements have never been more vivid, more palpable than in the imagery of forests, leaves, and our presence in nature. These considerations harken to those of 19th-century transcendental thinking.It is in the articulation of marks on a canvas that I am driven to both describe and discover rhythms in this dialogue with living. The phenomena of life have summoned the adventures mapped here.
On the back of one canvas are written lines that reflect the themes and meanings churning in every piece:
In stillness dusk was doubled In reflection
It was the world again
Reminding us to see
The up and down of everything
Of day and night's brief moment
Of embrace.
It is the chiaroscuro inherent in living that drives
this summary of my so-called life.
