Oxbow, Napa River, Napa, CA, 2002

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The Water Remembers: Recent Paintings by May Stevens 1990-2004

Saturday, June 11, 2005—Sunday, July 31, 2005
U.S. Bank Gallery
Free Exhibition

“The Water Remembers: Recent Paintings by May Stevens 1990-2004” will feature a selection of recent large-scale paintings and related works on paper by the acclaimed contemporary American painter and printmaker May Stevens (born Boston, 1924). In this body of thematically related works, Stevens explores the concept of an enduring universal consciousness that she believes underlies all human experience. She reveals her own spiritual connection to the world through the depiction of luminous bodies of water—aquatic landscapes—which commonly include abstracted sequences of words extracted from texts ranging from Virginia Woolf to Irish poetry of the 5th century BCE. These text fragments operate as mnemonic cues—reminders of a common human spirituality. For Stevens, these poetic and highly personal works of art evoke a sense of continuance, of connection between people, and the transient nature of time, of place, and of life.

Organized by Springfield Art Museum, Springfield, Missouri

This exhibition is made possible with generous support from U.S. Bank.