Anne Marchand The painting "Spiral" by Anne Marchand will be part of her exhibit at Montgomery College that features abstract paintings inspired by images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Anne Marchand The painting "Of Shining Words" is the title piece of Anne Marchand's exhibit that explores images of the universe and the quest to understand the force behind it.

Anne Marchand The painting "Spiral" by Anne Marchand will be part of her exhibit at Montgomery College that features abstract paintings inspired by images from the Hubble Space Telescope.

 

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Scientific images from the Hubble Space Telescope and early mystical poetry may seem worlds apart, but painter Anne Marchand ties it all together with colorful abstraction that captures the whirling of the galaxies and the quest to understand what makes them spin.

A new exhibit of 30 abstract paintings by Marchand at the King Street Gallery of Montgomery College evokes the images of outer space and explores the connection between science and mysticism. Titled after a line from a hymn, the exhibit “Of Shining Worlds” parallels the questions about what makes the universe function and the existence of beautiful forms out in space.

The Washington, D.C., artist previously had been working on a series about energy and was focusing on elliptical movement and patterns when she stumbled upon a magazine article with a picture of a spiral galaxy.

“It was one of those ‘ah-ha’ moments,” Marchand says. “It just connected.”

Marchand began exploring circular forms and launched a series that references the images seen from the Hubble Space Telescope such as nebulas, moons and planets. Creating her paintings flat on the ground, she uses acrylic paints and incorporates mixed media such as paper, sand and beads to create texture.

Beyond the translation between images from outer space and their abstract portrayal on canvas, Marchand also drew inspiration from 13th century mystical poet Rumi, whose work explores the search for union with God and a connection to others.

“To me, it’s just a personal connection,” Marchand says. “I’ve been dealing with space, the space between bodies, or to outer space, then the other bodies floating out there. So you can just expand out like that and everything has its part of this whirling.”

A translation of Rumi’s poetry will be read at a special event held at the gallery on Sept. 29, which will include a musical performance by Maurice Sedacca on the oud, a Middle Eastern stringed instrument. Music also will play another role in the paintings’ presentation, as ethereal music composed by Steven Rogers specifically for the exhibition will be played during the opening reception on Thursday. Visitors will be able to call a number on their cell phones at any time during the month-long exhibit and listen to the music that corresponds with 14 pieces in the show.

“This is the first time I’ve incorporated all these things into an exhibit and it’s importation for me to incorporate the other arts,” Marchand says.

When laying out the gallery space, the show’s curator Claudia Rousseau was attracted to the different sizes of canvases Marchand worked with, ranging from a 5-inch square to paintings larger than a 5-foot square, each saturated with color.

“They are large paintings that are full of energy and color, and they are really inspiring. They are beautiful in the fact that they are so full of energy and the poetry that can only be expressed in nonobjective and nonrepresentational art,” says Rousseau, who is also an arts critic for The Gazette.

Marchand’s show ties in nicely with the college’s initiative of pairing arts and sciences with a series of exhibitions called “Intersections: Where Art Meets Science,” Rousseau says. She began planning a show for Marchand after they talked during an exhibition opening at the King Street Gallery last year.

Already impressed by her resume, Rousseau appreciated the recent evolution and direction of Marchand’s paintings.

“They are a new level of her work, a new evolution of it that is highly expressive of the things that interest her — outer and inner space,” she says.

Growing up around the vibrancy of the city of New Orleans, Marchand always enjoyed rich colors and incorporated them into her work. After graduating with a master’s degree in fine arts from the University of Georgia, she moved to Washington, D.C., where she has painted several public murals. Always an expressionist, she also is known for her cityscapes, but has enjoyed her work in pure abstraction in recent years.

With the “Of Shining Worlds” exhibition, Marchand played off the idea of interconnectedness bridging the distance between bodies on different scales, from humans to the stars above.

To Marchand, the images from The Hubble and the mystic poetry she draws upon in her work are part of the same quest for meaning and understanding that is the power behind the turning of life.

“Why are we here? What is the purpose of life? And trying to imagine what could be and seeing the beauty and awesomeness of what actually exists,” Marchand says.

ccalamaio@gazette.net

“Of Shining Words: Recent Paintings by Anne Marchand” is on display through Oct. 19 at the King Street Gallery in the atrium of The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation Arts Center, 930 King St., Silver Spring. The opening reception from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Thursday will feature music composed by Steven Rogers. A gallery event from 6 to 7 p.m. will feature artist comments, a poetry reading and music by Maurice Sedacca. For more information, visit www.montgomerycollege.edu/arts-tpss/exhibitions.