Erin Treacy

Erin Treacy's work explores her interest in the chaos and repetition of memories colliding within her thought process. The accumulation of oil and acrylic paint, pattern, and drawing on the paper is Treacy's idealized, visual list of pleasurable times and places. She uses a variety of mediums and applications to express the multiplicity of moments that combine to form a memory. As she delves into her past, Treacy enters into a vocabulary that borders on the real and imaginary, for memories are full of falsities. These falsities result in an invented land of abstraction. Through the scraping and building of the surface, Treacy leaves numerous layers of paint visible in one moment. These physical layers of paint echo the conceptual layers of memories she is retrieving.

Treacy has long had this fear of forgetting things, so she writes everything down over and over again. She rarely looks back at these lists but relies on the act of writing as a tool for remembering. Her paintings are a visual list of lines and shapes to express experiences. They are arenas where the viewer and Treacy can self-reflect in an ambiguous landscape. As she reflects on her own experiences to create her work, Treacy encourages the viewer to do the same. She asks the observer to churn through his or her own memory and find his or her own grounding in the dream-like, weightless space.

Treacy received her BFA (2004) from Pratt Institute and her MFA (2007) from the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth. She has exhibited in numerous juried and invitational exhibits throughout the U.S. In 2007 and 2008 Treacy was invited to worked with Gallery P&P’s artist symposiums in Slovakia and The Czech Republic. She has recently relocated to the west coast of Ireland and is a member of G126, an artist collaborative in Galway, Ireland.

In 2009 Treacy will have exhibitions both here and in Ireland. Additionally, she will travel to Sotjala Hauho, Finland to participate in the Evergreen Symposium- Invitational Symposium.