The Kent Place Gallery will present an exhibition of art by Devin Powers from Friday, October 21 through Friday, November 18, 2011. There will be a reception for the artist from 6:00-8:00 p.m. on Friday, October 21.
Powers is creating a site-specific work in the Kent Place Gallery, painting directly onto the gallery walls. He is working his way around and over the architectural features of the room with a flowing geometric grid of flickering, diamond-shaped marks. It is the first time in the gallery’s history that an artist has engaged so directly with the existing structure of the space.
Brooklyn-based Powers is deeply involved in an investigation of geometry and pattern. He has been making and exhibiting paintings, drawings, books and wall works in this vein for several years. His works have dealt with advanced spatial concepts: visualizing various mathematical forms such as hyper-cubes, and playing out complex repeating and non-repeating patterns. The paintings he creates can evoke a wide range of references, from exquisite Islamic tiles to the traces of natural forces revealed by experiments with high-energy particle colliders. Simultaneously, his works are aesthetic objects, created with a rational aspect but distilling beauty and inviting contemplation.
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The single painting that Powers is making around the interior of the gallery at Kent Place is called “Unification.” The artist says, “’Unification’ is a painting that reacts to the architecture… It is composed of a single repeated thin blue diamond shape that dances over the walls, corners and beams of the space to create an enveloping whole.”
“The work’s title, ‘Unification’, is key - Devin’s painting literally pulls together the visual space of the room while suggesting currents and movements across the walls that are dynamic and prompt the imagination,” states Gallery Director Ken Weathersby. “‘Unification’ can be taken to have a literal meaning, it gathers this particular space into a single complex yet related experience, (which in itself is already a substantial thought).”
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Weathersby continues, “Furthermore, I can’t help also considering metaphorical implications; the notion of these energized individuals (these little blue diamonds) all pulling together albeit in their eccentric paths to unify into a larger whole. It seems like a hopeful democratic vision.”
Devin Powers is a graduate of the MFA program at Brooklyn College and received his BA from Bennington College. The artist has a growing exhibition resume including another solo show in 2011 at Win Wilder Hall in Rockland, ME, and group shows at Lesley Heller Gallery and Elga Wimmer Gallery in New York City.
Kent Place Gallery is on the campus of Kent Place School, 42 Norwood Avenue, Summit, NJ. Gallery hours are Monday through Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. For more information call (908) 273-0900, or visit www.kentplace.org.
