Untitled Charles Emery Powell Acrylic and Lacquer on Canvas, 1981

Untitled Charles Emery Powell acrylic and lacquer painting on canvas circa 1981

From Powell's estate: 
Powell graduated from the University of Colorado in 1974 with a B.F.A. in Painting and
Printmaking, having begun his undergraduate work in Engineering. He completed his senior year as a curatorial intern under Marcia Tucker (then curator of Paintings and Sculpture) at the Whitney Museum of American Art (NYC). While there he worked as both an exhibit preparator and administrator for various shows including the Biennial. He also studied graduate architectural design and urban planning at the Pratt Institute.

As an artist, Powell’s abstract paintings from the late 1970s/1980’s were executed in a variety of mediums including acrylic, acrylic + lacquer, and fresco. Earlier works refer to his background in printmaking and were often inspired by his interests in science, particularly physics. Later works display a strong and often musical energy, in which patterns of large brush strokes are over-sprayed with acrylic lacquer which is then sanded—creating a jewel-like surface which flattens out the brush strokes while simultaneously highlighting the ‘physicality’ of them.