Childs Gallery, Boston is pleased to present Anne Lyman Powers: Seven Decades of Painting, an exhibition bringing together still lifes, landscapes, and figural works spanning the Boston area artist’s prolific career. A survey of Powers’ oeuvre demonstrates a long-standing and continued interest in the relationship of subject and object – the subject of the painting, whatever it may be, and the painting as an object itself: its composition, color, and texture. Powers deftly marries these aspects to create works that evoke thoughts and feelings reflecting upon both visual and emotional experiences.

Anne Lyman (Powers) was born in Boston in 1922. She became interested in painting around the age of 16. The artist attended the Winsor School and went on to Vassar College, where she majored in English but also enjoyed courses in art history and sculpture. In 1945 she enrolled at the Boston Museum School and studied with many renowned Boston Expressionists including the head of the painting department, Karl Zerbe. Under such leadership, Powers explored a wide variety of subject matter, both real and surreal, while also developing her interest in the play of color and the power of dynamic compositions.

In her professional career, Powers has maintained the interests garnered during her artistic education. Though her subjects are always straightforward and based within the concept of realism, the artist has never limited herself with what she chooses to represent – people, animals, flowers, scenery, and any sort of mundane object are all fair game as potential focus for a work. In this way, much of Powers’ art is a reflection of her own life, but also speaks to a larger audience through the use of familiar imagery.

Though employing realist subject matter, Powers has never shied away from the surrealist influences of her early works and, indeed, also includes nods to other artistic movements throughout her oeuvre. The complex figural compositions in paintings such as [The Show] and Two Chinese Clowns from the artist’s Circus series showcase astounding acrobatic feats that transport the viewer to a fantasy-like Big Top setting. The arrangement of Nesting Sight and Vernal Pool with Willows recall the conceptual forms found in Abstract Expressionism. Footgear employs vibrant colors influenced by Pop Art. In The Hurricane, Powers looks all the way back to Hieronymus Bosch for inspiration in her interpretation of a modern-day natural disaster.

Familiar images peppered with various stylistic influences and idiosyncratic elements are all hallmarks of Powers’ work that have distinguished the artist for over seven decades. Her interplay of subject and object – a focal point in an interesting composition, rendered in appealing colors – creates a particular appreciation of the themes found throughout the artist’s paintings. Whatever the decade, Powers’ art remains arresting because of the tensions these elements create – a feeling, experience, or statement evoked from a unique view of the surrounding world.

Anne Lyman Powers will attend the exhibition’s opening reception at Childs Gallery on Saturday May 21st, between 3:00 and 5:00pm.  The public is welcome to attend. Visit the exhibition online childsgallery.com.