Rory Powers
Hell’s Kitchen, NYC
2019
“I prefer living in color”
About the Artist
New York resident, Rory Powers has been painting for over thirty years. Primarily self taught in all forms of visual arts, he began his painting career as watercolor portraitist.
At the time he also began working on the costumes for a myriad of Broadway shows, both as a designer and as a sketch artist.
Daughter of Byron Franklin
30 x 42 watercolor on cotton
Alabama 1992
Sketch by Rory Powers
The House of the Dancing Water
Designed by Suzy Benzinger
Directed by Franco Dragone
The City of Dreams Casino, Macau
2010
Seeing subtle variances within bright colors and acknowledging the most basic shapes within larger shapes has always been the base of his work-- which also led him into mosaic tiling while living in London.
While there from 2002-2005, he made the switch to the more vibrant oils and began painting people as personalities rather than portraits. Assigning them a place and a time and a color.
Rory has been fortunate enough to have worked on the costume designs for over two dozen Broadway, West End and Australian musicals, as well as more than a dozen major motion pictures and TV shows.
Repose
20 x 30 oil on linen
London 2004
He has studied at the London School of Painting and Drawing and the Art Students League of New York and is the recipient of a 2016 Primetime Emmy Award.
“No great artist ever sees things as they really are. If he did, he would cease to be an artist. ”
Man in Purple Trench
8 x 10 oil on linen
New York 2006
Currently residing in
Hell’s Kitchen, New York City
and a Home Studio in
Dothan, Alabama
“Color is a power which directly influences the soul.”- Wassily Kandinsky
