Anne Delaney: Looking and Seeing
Mom-Last Light of the Day, oil on canvas, 24×36 inches, 2024-25
I reached out to Anne to share a few words on her upcoming show at Bowery Gallery. I thought it would be appropriate to begin this post by sharing a direct quote, which so aptly encapsulates this show: "I draw figures and shapes within the structure of the composition, which is in flux, as possibilities present themselves: possibilities of color relationships, texture, and scale changes, ultimately leading to a surprising and emotionally ambiguous picture." She shared that her influences are Bonnard, Joan Mitchell, and Celia Paul–and the execution of this body of work truly feels like a dialogue with those painters–particularly Bonnard and Paul.
Green Woods, oil on canvas, 24×36 inches, 2024
Of her landscapes, she shared, “I thought of the trees as musical notations, sequences of vertical and diagonal lines. I used color and value to capture the feeling of being among the trees.” The metaphor of music truly resonates, as she explores the landscape through the harmonics of color. The vibrancy she captures in Green Woods is made part by the modulations of contrasting colors–momentary hits of red and purple in an otherwise densely saturated forest of green and brown pull us in, to explore what might be between the trees. The vibrancy of those subtle hits of color are in direct reference to her Bonnard influence.
Three Trees, oil on canvas, 15.5x15.5 inches, 2024-25
This influence also carries into Three Trees, where Delaney investigates the way the blue sky, in the full, mid-day light creates a backlit atmospheric light on the trees in the foreground and background. The muted tones of the distant coniferous foliage are in direct contrast to the high key purples and pinks of the back lit bark of the bare deciduous tree in the foreground. Between these two structures, another tree is standing, but somehow seems to be caught in mid-snap, as there are pieces of its trunk caught in mid-air. In an otherwise harmonious landscape painting, we have a mysterious sense of narrative. How did that tree just snap? Who is out there disrupting the peace?
Several of her landscapes contain figures, which seem to be in deep consideration with their connection to the earth. Delaney shared with me, “The figures with landscapes are placed outside in upstate NY where I have been trying to figure out how to conceptualize the landscape with all of the little hills and so many trees.” However, these paintings are not just about conceptualizing hills and trees. She is painting her relationship with the landscape as a narrative, or as a grappling with how the figure exists within this landscape.
The View from Above, oil on canvas, 24x36 inches, 2024-25
Delaney paints the overwhelming emotional intensity felt by the figure through gesture, color, and abstraction. The figure, with twisted torso and outstretched arms, is looking back at the earth, whose lush green hills and trees appear to be rising up, in a nonverbal, conversational response to her theatrical pose, as if she is summoning the energy of the hills. The natural forms of the landscape have become abstracted, nearly beyond recognition, though it does not matter: whether they are rocks or trees, they have been subsumed into the immensity of nature itself. We see the rich flesh tone of the left upper arm, with open hands, visibly reaching. The figure and the landscape would be the typical painting of “figure in nature.” And yet, there is this wooden pillar breaking up the energy of that left arm. We are watching a woman taking it all in, being with her surroundings. We are witnessing the essential conflict between human and nature: she is negotiating her oneness with nature while pacing across the safe, comfortable front porch of her man made home.
Hideout in the Woods, 24x36 inches, oil on canvas, 2025
In Hideout in the Woods, there is a similar interplay between figure and nature. Tucked away in a shadowy manmade shelter in the woods, we see a person looking out into the distance, over the hill, at what appears to be a massive red sun that is setting in the sky. Meanwhile, a squirrel sits on some cut logs in the foreground on the far left of the picture plane, going about its usual business. Like in A View from Above, there is a pillar-like tree in the foreground, which in this case, is a living tree that is reminding us that we are in the woods, witnessing the figure take shelter in order to gaze at the immensity of the nature that is literally surrounding them.
Descendents, oil on canvas, 15x15 inches, 2025
And then there is another set of works that are primarily focused on the figure. These works feel like they are tapped into the same investigations as the Bay Area figurative painters, such as Park and Oliviera. In Descendents, figures are painted as a confrontation–not just with each other, but with the viewer. Delaney is painting an existential friction between the atmosphere and the figures, perhaps triggered by the relationships between the people in the pictures. The warm tan tones on the face in the front are outlined by a mysterious light coming from behind, which is hitting the face in the background from a more front angle, so that the light is actually between the figures. She writes, “I like the paintings to be like poems where you have to try many things before you find the right combination of color, space, form and metaphor or story or references.” Anne Delaney’s work is mysterious, poetic, and metaphorical.
Looking and Seeing is on view from March 25 until April 19, 2025. The opening reception is on Thursday, March 27, from 6-8pm.
-Eileen Mooney.
