Milton Academy visual arts faculty member Anne Neely’s new collection of work, The Edge of the World, opens at the Lohin Geduld Gallery in New York on February 19, 2005. Milton graduates and friends are invited to view the collection with Anne at a wine reception on Thursday, March 3, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. or at the February 19 opening, from 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.

While this series continues to explore the same themes, which have characterized Anne’s work for over two decades–the relationship between man and nature, a personal dialogue with the language of mark-making, and the quest for spirit through matter–these paintings reveal new territory of investigation as she deepens her commitment to abstraction.

Independent curator and art critic, Margaret Mathews-Berenson, describes Anne’s new paintings included in The Edge of the World:

“Throughout her work, Neely examines the world from macro to micro – from man’s place in the universe to amorphous cellular beings suggesting the earliest forms of life. In The Edge of the World, she explores the subtleties and complexities of the relationships among land, sea, and sky. An incandescent mist rises from the horizon line, marking an energy field where sea meets sky – or the earthly meets the unearthly – a place that can be seen only in dreams. The figure/ground relationship is expertly balanced with the artist’s signature, fan-shaped protagonists flitting occasionally across the surface, their weightlessness and exuberance a contrast to the dense blue of the space around them, which suggests the infinite depths of the sea.

“A multitude of miniature paintings constitute the backdrop, each one a carefully observed phenomenon of nature: sunlight glinting on the surface of water, waves in a variety of rhythmic patterns, ripples pulsing ever outward, wind currents swirling like hurricanes on a meteorologist’s chart. Though this teeming universe seems to totter on the brink of self-destruction, it is also pregnant with the power of continual regeneration.”