Mike Dacey

May 2nd - June 2nd, 2013

As an artist, Mike Dacey has worked in sight-specific installation, building amorphous structures, which straddle the boundaries between geometric abstraction and functional architecture: a mélange of wooden triangles that grow in and around gallery architecture and invite visitors to both see and experience the work. Professionally, Dacey owns and operates Repeat Press, a contemporary commercial letterpress studio in Somerville,

Massachusetts, designing and making prints, posters, cards and books, among other things, for a wide variety of clients.

The works in CIRCLES, Mike Dacey’s first one-person show at the gallery, are all unique works on paper that marry the intuitive, modular organization of his earlier installations with the exactitude of the letterpress. The jumbles of geometry, all uniformly circumscribed and placed within a larger frame, become objects that reconcile ideas in his past installations with the processes of his current commercial pursuits. The artist makes the works by “inking the whole [printing] plate, selectively removing areas of ink and then printing the sheet.” That process is repeated several times per piece causing a gradual build up of pigment density, creating tonal shifts across the paper’s fractured surface. As much a product of process as design, the printed pieces are both tactile and mechanical, “a way to go outside the usual boundaries of [his] everyday printing for clients.”

Mike Dacey has had previous solo shows at the Washington Street Art Center in Somerville, MA and Courduroy Gallery in Portland, ME.  A 2004 graduate of Hampshire College, he currently lives and works in Somerville, MA.

Visit Mike's website at mikedacey.com!