Chester’s Grosvenor Museum hosts Anne Lever: The Poetic Landscape.
An exhibition of beautiful paintings by Anne Lever and poems by Michael Fox has opened at Chester’s Grosvenor Museum. ‘Anne Lever: The Poetic Landscape’ runs until July 17.
Councillor Louise Gittins, Cabinet Member for Culture, Health and Wellbeing, said: “I am delighted the Grosvenor Museum is exhibiting these richly textured paintings and poems, which complement one another so harmoniously.
“Appealing equally to the senses and the mind, they offer our visitors a wonderfully rewarding artistic experience.”
Anne Lever left her practice as a lawyer in London to live and paint in rural Cheshire.
She studied with Robin Child at his Art Research Centre and is a member of the Rosvik Collective, a group of artists interested in landscape art.
Inspired by her love and knowledge of the British landscape and its history, her work is ordered by geometry and infused with feeling for the spirit of place.
Working in the imaginative Neo-Romantic tradition, her art is influenced by the French master Paul Cezanne, the American painter Richard Diebenkorn and the British artist Keith Vaughan.
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Exhibiting widely and with a growing following, her work is in many private collections.
Anne Lever said: “In all my painting I seek to transmit something of what I feel when a fleeting glimpse of something in the landscape stops me in my tracks.
“I go out in all weathers. Something catches my attention. I try to capture that sensation in my work. Not by recording reality but by finding an image that reflects my experience.
“I have a passion for paint and am compelled to push through boundaries to resolve things I do not fully comprehend. The result is always a surprise and leads on to further discovery.”
Each painting in the exhibition has inspired a poem by Michael Fox.
He was the first literary manager of the Royal Exchange Theatre, Manchester, before becoming a BBC drama producer.
Subsequently he set up his own independent media company before co-founding and directing the Commonwealth Film Festival. Now an Anglican priest, he combines writing with doctoral research into drama and theology.
'Powerful visual expressions which need no explanation'
Michael Fox said: “Anne’s paintings are powerful visual expressions which need no explanation, but since first encountering her work I have admired it for its poetic quality, for its dash and verve and sense of creating a vivid experience there in the moment.
“I found myself wanting to respond by chasing down the imaginative places to which the work takes me and by finding a language for the deep resonances the combinations of colour and structure evoke in me.”
The programme of accompanying events includes:
Friday, June 3, Tissue Paper Landscapes family activity.
Tuesday, July 12, Exhibition Tour with Anne Lever
The Grosvenor Museum is open Monday–Saturday 10.30am-5pm and Sunday 1-4pm, admission free, donations are welcome.
