This exhibition brings together a selection of works by Cathy Daley which date from the early 1980s to the present. Included are several series of drawings which represent the two approaches that Daley takes to her work: large scale images which capture the full-length gestures of the artist’s arm and smaller works executed on letter-size writing paper.

The process of drawing plays an essential role in Cathy Daley’s work. There is a degree of spontaneity achieved through her active engagement with materials-chalk, paint and paper. The particular traces and rhymes of the artist’s hand, the gestures of drawing, are evidence of the rapport between the artist and the artwork. Drawing for Daley retains a promordial character. Owing to its high degree of fluidity and immediacy, it is singularly equipped to register the contents of the unconscious. “Sometimes I think of drawing as a kind of private performance. The image, which is fixed in my mind when I begin, emerges in its final form through the working process.”

The Art Gallery of York University is supported by the Canada Council, the Ontario Arts Council, Metropolitan Toronto-Cultural Affairs Division and the City of North York.