In his survey article covering more than 200 Maine artists creating landscape paintings, Carl Little writes: "If asked to choose one painter who is bringing remarkable changes to the Maine landscape, I would offer Anne Neely...
Excerpt from article:
The spectrum of landscape art as it stands today in Maine remains within the bounds it has always occupied: realism to abstraction and back again—and everything in between. There is an independence of vision—even where the painters share the same landscape. Motifs are revisited and reinvented—the crashing wave, the Monhegan headlands, Mount Katahdin.
At the same time, the landscape legacy continues to grow and diversify, as evidenced by the variety of modes highlighted in this issue of the Maine Arts Journal. New residencies like Monson Arts and the Surf Point Foundation in York are introducing painters to diverse motifs. The state’s colleges and universities play a similar role, as do such institutions as the Skowhegan School of Painting of Sculpture and the Haystack Mountain School of Crafts.
If asked to choose one painter who is bringing remarkable changes to the Maine landscape, I would offer Anne Neely, a Boston-based painter who lives part of the year in Washington County. In response to threats to the environment, she has created ethereal landscapes, some of which pay homage to the Mopang Aquifer in Township 30.