BFA, Tufts University, 1976
Diploma & Fifth Year Diplomas, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston,
1973 & 74
Alston Conley is the Chief Curator of the McMullen Museum of Art at Boston College. He has curated several exhibitions at the McMullen that focus on contemporary art including two examinations of women artists. He is also a painter who has investigated identity and ancestry in his recent artworks, and investigated cultural identity in his earlier Frescos. He has received grants or fellowships for his artwork from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, The Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown, a Fulbright-Hayes Grant for Italy and The Ballinglen Arts Foundation in Ireland. He been included in exhibitions at the Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center, the New Bedford Art Museum, Maine Coast Artists Gallery, Maine College of Art Gallery, Parsons Gallery NYC and Newhouse Gallery, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island. He teaches painting classes in the Fine Arts Department.
Publications:
- "Exploring Place and Artistic Practice in Northern Mayo," Éire/Land Exhibition Catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, 2003
- House: Charged Space, Exhibition Catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, 2001
- "Interview with Alice Maher", Éire-Ireland, Fall-Winter 1998 & Spring 1999, XXXIII: 3&4; XXXIV: 1
- Re/Dressing Cathleen: Contemporary Works by Irish Women Artists, Co-editor Exhibition Catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1997
- Original Visions: Shifting The Paradigm, Women's Art, 1970-1996, Exhibition Catalogue, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, 1997
- Jack Tworkov 1935-1982: An Abstract Expressionist Inventing Form, Exhibition Catalogue, Boston College Museum of Art, 1994
- A Demonstration of the Fresco Technique, Exhibition Video, BC Museum of Art
- Inspired By Nature: A Contemporary View, Exhibition Brochure, BC Museum of Art
Exhibitions:
- 1999 Vault Series IV: Chairs, New Bedford Art Museum, New Bedford, MA
- 1999 The Search Beyond The Surface, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME
- 1999 Artists at Boston College, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College
- 1998 After Dark, Maine Coast Artists, Rockport, ME
- 1996-97 Skowhegan at 50: The Maine Legacy, Maine Coast Artists Rockport, and Baxter Gallery, Maine College of Art, Portland, and The State House, ME
- 1995 Einstein Gallery, NYC
- 1994 Fresco A Contemporary Perspective, Parsons Gallery, NY and Newhouse Gallery, Snug Harbor Cultural Center, Staten Island, & McMullen Museum
- 1993 Where Fire Meets Water, Cambridge Multicultural Arts Center
- 1991 Images from the Eighties, Harn Museum of Art, U of Florida
- 1989-90 Subjective Abstraction, The Art Gallery at Boston College, The Arno Maris Gallery at Westfield State College, The Art Gallery at Montserrat College of Art