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RYAN LEE Gallery is pleased to announce When the Waters Break, an exhibition of five paintings and eleven works on paper by May Stevens (b. 1924 Quincy, MA - d. 2019 Santa Fe, NM), made between 1994 and 2009. These works derive from Stevens’s final body of work and most have not been exhibited in New York for nearly twenty years; some will be exhibited for the first time ever. Rooted in her enduring connection to rivers and oceans, these works depict bodies of water—both real and imagined—that were important to Stevens throughout her life. Stevens often added words to the surface of the water, drawing inspiration from women’s writings including passages from Virginia Woolf and Julia Kristeva.
The title of this exhibition comes from a 2006 lecture Stevens gave at Rutgers University that focused on the creative process, relating the struggle of an artist as she works and the sudden realization that the artwork is complete. Stevens explained, “You realize that this has...More
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Press Release
RYAN LEE Gallery is pleased to announce When the Waters Break, an exhibition of five paintings and eleven works on paper by May Stevens (b. 1924 Quincy, MA - d. 2019 Santa Fe, NM), made between 1994 and 2009. These works derive from Stevens’s final body of work and most have not been exhibited in New York for nearly twenty years; some will be exhibited for the first time ever. Rooted in her enduring connection to rivers and oceans, these works depict bodies of water—both real and imagined—that were important to Stevens throughout her life. Stevens often added words to the surface of the water, drawing inspiration from women’s writings including passages from Virginia Woolf and Julia Kristeva.
The title of this exhibition comes from a 2006 lecture Stevens gave at Rutgers University that focused on the creative process, relating the struggle of an artist as she works and the sudden realization that the artwork is complete. Stevens explained, “You realize that this has...More