Dana Powell

Each group of paintings acutely captures suspended moments, with works activating scenarios that await some conclusion. Paintings of fruit and inanimate commonplace objects further the tradition attached to still life painting, and explore the possibilities of portraying time, as it unfolds in a static frame.

Stretching subjects beyond face value interpretation, Powell’s core strategies are often rooted in the ambiguity embedded within an object or scenario. Lacking a focal point and pushed to the edge of abstraction, swimming pool paintings engage water as the sole signifier without fixed meaning—water is delightful, a pastime activity, but it can quickly turn threatening. Elevator doors and peephole paintings pivot slightly from abstraction, but retain the contradiction of innocence and danger, tying themes of surveillance, claustrophobia and anxiety to tightly-rendered, seemingly straightforward depictions.

Powell’s investigations distill the unease of today. Night time narratives are especially palpable psychological atmospheres. Cinematic details and an impermeable ambience describe a suspense that is neither outright scary nor sad, but quietly unreachable and ominous. Akin to the cadence of an Alfred Hitchcock narrative, these familiar scenarios oscillate between the fixed and the abstract, showing that uneventfulness can be just as jarring as the extraordinary.