Pandemic Series An Exhibition by Thomas Powers

Published January 20, 2022

Instituto de Arte y Cultura de Celaya, Celaya
February 4 to March 6

Tom Powers’ new museum exhibition at Instituto de Arte y Cultura de Celaya features 8-foot color prints that focus on themes related to the pandemic he created in San Miguel de Allende.

Powers spent his adolescence in Querétaro before living in the US to study, teach and show his artwork. During that time, he visited San Miguel as often as he could, before finally returning to focus on his artwork.

Then the pandemic hit in 2020.

To explore themes of death and chaos, Powers concentrated on the literary classic, Dante’s Inferno. He started with black and white linoleum prints investigating themes of death and the afterlife: Hell, Bardo, The Age of Kali, The Peaceable Kingdom. Then he moved on to create large, vibrant impressions somewhere between prints and painting. Each of his 8’ by 6’ hand-printed canvases interpret one of Dante’s infernos 34 cantos.

These impressions are more like a current of thought, a personal interpretation, rather than a literal translation of Dante’s cantos. They are not illustrated textually, but rather, he encourages each spectator’s personal response.

The show features seven large canvases, his initial black and white prints, two stunning large Dante-themed litho-prints, and a video by local videographer Gaby G. Acosta of the process. Tocomplete the large prints by hand, Powers worked with the talented local artist Marisol Guerrero. Although it’s difficult understand the impact of Powers’ work online, a taste of the show can be found at ThomasPowers.art.

Thomas Powers was born in Connecticut but spent his formative years in Latin America. He has an BFA in painting from the Maryland Institute College of Art and an MFA from Queen’s College Graduate School of the Arts. His work has been exhibited in numerous galleries and museums including: The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, Maryland; Queens College, Queens, NY; The Hudson River Museum, Yonkers, NY; Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.

By the late 1970’s, Powers was also a musician, appearing at CBGB’s, Max’s Kansas City, and the Uncle Floyd Show (Television). In the 1980’s, Powers’ company Artibus installed shows in NYC for James Turrell at the Whitney Museum of Art and PS1, Donald Judd at the Leo Castelli Gallery, Dan Flavin at Museum of Modern Art, as well as Tom Wesselmann, Steve Reich and Sol Lewitt in NYC. In the 1990s, Powers illustrated a children’s book for Harper Collins Publishers, The Table and the Chair, by Edward Lear, and designed interactive games and animations. During that period, he was also the art director of Hard Press Publishing. Then, for 17 years Powers taught digital media arts as a full professor at Springfield Technical Community College, Springfield, MA, where he also established the Department of Animation and Interactive Media Design.

What’s next? Powers plans on finishing all 34 of Dante’s Inferno cantos over the next several years!