Julie Gray Brings Provincetown's White-Line Tradition Into a New Chapter at the Ali Gray Gallery

When the Ali Gray Gallery opened its on Commercial Street earlier this month, the inevitable first solo show was always going to speak a little something. That it belongs to Julie Gray, Ali's wife, the artist whose work quietly anchored the gallery's origin story, who was probably at the table and overheard that fated conversation that led to Ali’s name on the sign outside, feels less like nepotism and more like a full circle acknowledgement.

Julie Gray: Prints & Paintings opens Friday, June 5th with a reception from 6 to 9pm at 338 Commercial Street. It’s free and open to the public.

The show brings together Julie's white-line woodblock prints alongside a new body of oil paintings, the latter marking a meaningful expansion of her vision and a debut worth showing up for if the opening reception was any indicator. These paintings will certainly carry the same qualities that define her prints (a sensitivity to light, place, and atmosphere), what’s left is to see which new register she’s in as her work continues to evolve.

The prints themselves are worth a moment of context. The white-line woodblock method is one of Provincetown's genuine contributions to American art history, developed out here in the early 20th century and still closely associated with the Ptown's identity. Unlike traditional multi-block printmaking, the Provincetown method works from a single carved block with hand-painted color applied directly. The white lines that give the process its name emerge from the carved grooves between colors. Julie Gray works squarely within that tradition while bringing her voice to it.

For a gallery that opened by honoring the legacy of the space it inherited, leading its solo season with work rooted this pointedly in the local artistic DNA feels like an appropriate nod.

The exhibition runs through June 18th.