The Midnight Zone had been the beloved corner of the gallery for roughly a year — and on Thursday, August 27, that corner existed for the very last time. The closing reception for Amy Chace’s bathypelagic blacklight exhibition took place at Fish City Studios on Main Street in Gloucester, Massachusetts, from 8:30 to 10:30 PM EDT. It was the final night for the blacklight room, which glowed one last time with UV work by Amy Chace, alongside pieces by Jon Sarkin, James Formichella, and others.
Fish City Studios is more than a gallery — it’s a living monument to the uninhibited compulsion to create. Stepping off Main Street, visitors enter an entirely different wavelength, a space dedicated to outsider visions, unconventional photography, and raw creativity. Sometimes obsessive, sometimes explosive, always alive. The gallery champions those who create from instinct, experience, and obsession, offering a home to outsider art, experimental photography, and forms that defy easy classification. Rooted in the spirit of Jon Sarkin’s unchained creativity — who worked from this very studio — Fish City Studios is a home for the raw, the unexpected, and the uncompromisingly original.
Amy Chace paints with UV pigments, so her work reveals itself in two ways: one picture in daylight, and another entirely different one under blacklight — the same board and brushstrokes, yet a different image altogether. A thousand meters down in the ocean, the light stops arriving from above and the sea begins to make its own. Chace’s paintings echo that same phenomenon. A Rockport painter and illustrator, Chace was a New York band photographer in an earlier chapter of her career, and has published two oracle decks with Schiffer. Her Manifesting Your Greatness Oracle deck guides readers to meditate on the question at hand — or simply to ask, “What do I need to know for today?” — then shuffle until one or two cards distinguish themselves, and turn to the companion guide for the meaning of the chosen cards. For those ready to go deeper, she invites pulling another card for further clarity. Even beginners can dive right in and start playing with the deck from the start.
The evening started at 8:30 in an effort to beat the summer heat, and it drew a crowd of those who wanted to see the room glow before it disappeared. The Midnight Zone ran as a UV-lit booth inside Fish City Studios — Jon Sarkin’s last studio — at 39 Main Street. The booth came down on August 27, and the show has since moved online, living on at themidnightzone.art.
📍 39 Main Street, Gloucester, MA
Photo credits: Fish City Studios; First row: Janet Knott (janetknott.com)
Leave a Reply