Artist Sees The Unseen

A breeze blows through Tracie Cheng’s new exhibit, The Seen and the Unseen, a collection of 14 drawings and mixed media artworks at The John Lyman Center for the Performing Arts Gallery. Cheng’s works — characterized by undulating movement in the artist’s billowing, parallel contour lines, hovering over atmospheric backgrounds — both mesmerize and soothe.

From the plain white museum board of her black micro pen drawings to the acrylic-on-wood tonalities of black and white and saturated color fields that show subtle texturing and layering, the interplay of positive and negative space and form is elegant in its simplicity. Where color is contained in the positive form bounded by lines, we sense a breeze, hear the flutter of ethereal textiles, and bask in the linear movement of an unseen force.

Much of the effect lies in the artist’s process of layering paint over portions of lines rendered with gold metallic oil markers, but also relining over painted areas as the work dictates. There are no traces of preliminary drawing or sketching because they do not exist: The artist spontaneously builds her veil-like drawings without expectation or complex planning during a process she describes as ​“meditative.” 

In some pieces, the line work is born out of collaborative playfulness with husband and sculptor Eóin Burke, who provides the first line of a given design. Cheng responds to and builds upon it. The practice derives from a kind of creative communication game played early in their relationship, when they gave each other verbal prompts and sentences that would be translated into imagery. 

Cheng’s creative process remains a dance between control and improvisation. Trained in architecture, Cheng said she continues to work to find balance between the structural aspects of architecture and the fluidity of painting. Initially, she was frustrated by line imperfections that arose in her artwork, but she has come to embrace them as metaphors for paths in life that are never perfect, never without mistakes. 

In the Lyman Center lobby, black and white offerings appear on the right-hand side of the lobby and color works on the left. Color also plays a role in the images placed in lighted display cases, a bridge across the considerable distance between the lobby’s ends and an area that is also loaded with theatrical memorabilia.

During the artist’s reception, cello teacher and performer Ravenna Michaelsen of the Neighborhood Music School played compositions and improvisations that blended masterfully with Cheng’s works. Michaelsen said her improvisational meanderings of repetitive, climbing, and descending phrases were intended to complement the flowing lines of Cheng’s imagery.

A part-time graphic designer at the Yale Center for British Art, Cheng said her time is equally divided between the job she loves and her studio time. With an upcoming exhibit that will pair her work with Burke’s sculpture at Westville’s DaSilva Gallery during the annual Artwalk event, Cheng said she will continue to build on the fertile explorations of ​“The Seen and the Unseen.”

The show runs through Dec. 19.