Kevin John Powell

of Illinois, could have so successfully, during his Student-Internship and thereafter, as an Artist-in-Residence at the Two-Foundations-at-"Applecrest" Estate, project the very essence of "cultural inclusion" in all of his non-objective art pieces.It is important to note that each time the Foundation arranged an exhibition of Kevin Powell`s works, they immediately attracted the attention of avid art lovers. And even though as an artist he might accurately be described as an "ingenue," his cut-sculpture paintings now appear in the permanent art collections of the South-African Embassy in Washington, D.C.; the Russian Federation Mission to the United Nations; The National Arts Club in New York City; the Meninger Clinic Foundation in Topeka, Kansas;and in private collections of Dr. Sherwood Jacobson and his patroness-of-the-arts wife, Mrs. Ruth Jacobson in New York City; and Washington D.C. art collector, Mrs. Lucille Burnett. He has also exhibited at the Lucky Street Art Gallery in Key West, Florida.

Even though the basic technique of Kevin Powell`s cut-sculpture paintings derives from the technique originally set forth by Picasso and Matisse, still, the aesthetic principles from which his works are derived, are uniquely American. At the same time, his works are as international in scope and feeling as are the great works of Bach, Beethoven and Brahms, uniquely German and at the same time, international in both their emotional and spiritual dimensions.

From L to R: (Top row) Mr. Kazuo Yano (Chairman of the Pa/Pa Japan and patron of UN Laureate Artist, Mr. Kevin John Powell); Mr. Hideo Hironaka (President, ECS Co., Ltd., Japan); M. Henri Georges Polgar (Pa/Pa-USA Executive Director); Mme. Lisa McFarren-Polgar (Pa/Pa-USA Associate Director); Mlle. Fawzieh Hassan (Pa/Pa-USA Ward); Mr. Kevin John Powell (UN Laureate Artist; Pa/Pa USA Artist-in-Residence); (Bottom row) Mme. Kumi Yano (patron of UN Laureate Artist, Mr. Kevin John Powell and historian of traditional Japanese women's fashion); Dr. Robert Starling Pritchard (Chairman of the Pa/Pa-USA and Founder of the Black History Month Observance); H.E. Emmanuel Touaboy (Ambassador of Central African Republic to the US and to the UN).

Lucky Street Gallery

It is in Our capacity as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of Our Foundation, that it is in anticipation of your gallery`s Group Show Exhibition of the paintings and drawings of Our Foundation sponsored 'Artist-in-Residence` � and 1997 / UN Laureate-Artist (Kevin John Powell) � that We are particularly pleased to take this occasion to extend this expression of Our personal and Our Foundation`s exceeding pride in the 2nd-party relationship with you and your Art Gallery that has already issued from the sagacity of your choice of the �avant-garde� Art of Kevin John Powell to be included in your gallery`s forthcoming Group Show, which We understand will be debuted in December.

Indeed, the esteemed members of Our Foundation`s �Cultural Exchange Permanent Programme Unit`s Governing Council� have unanimously agreed with Our assessment of the �coming together� of Your Goodself, your Art Gallery and the �avant-garde� Art of Kevin John Powell, as unique an Art History circumstance as was Our New York City Town Hall concert debut, from which Our career as �history`s first career-viable American virtuoso concert-pianist and recording artist of African descent� was, in 1961 launched.

Moreover, We are especially grateful to Our Foundation`s Executive Director (M. HenriGeorges Polgar) and Our Foundation`s Associate Director (Mme. Lisa Mc Farren-Polgar) who related their initial �meeting-of-the-minds� / first meeting with Your Goodself, for having met you and subsequently recommended that the members of Our Foundation`s �Cultural Exchange Permanent Programme Unit Governing Council� support their choice of your Art Gallery as the most appropriate of all of the galleries that Monsieur and Madame Polgar had previously visited, as the site of a debut Commercial Art Gallery Exhibition of the �avant-garde� drawings and paintings of Kevin John Powell.

Although it was in Our capacity as the founder (in 1965) of the �National / International Black History Month of February Annual Observance� (in the USA, Canada and in a growing number of the Black Island States of the Caribbean and on continental Africa) that We had the honour of prompting national and international recognition of the Art of such great African-American painters as the late Norman Lewis, Romare Beardon, Beaufort Delaney, et al � it is because the �avant-garde� Art of Anglo-American Artist Kevin John Powell also projects a New Aesthetic (which departs from such 20th Century Art Movements as The Dadaist, The Surrealist, The Accidental and Pop Art Movements), that Our Foundation has taken a special pride in supporting the Art of Kevin John Powell, because the unique and undeniable genius source of his Art may provide a new direction for �Art of The New Millennium� (via his creative incursions into those positive-space / negative-space dynamics, which he artistically explores at this time in history, when the scientific advances of technology have expanded The EveryMan`s concept of the vast differences between the Dimension instant, and the �Dimensionless-dimension�).

A-veritas, not only have experienced and erudite Art-Collector Scions and Daughters of the International Cultural Elite (who feature individual paintings and drawings of Kevin John Powell in their Private Collections) unanimously extolled the �New Art Aesthetic� that is projected from his paintings and drawings � but to a man and woman, they also seem to have instinctively understood that the �avant-garde� Art of Kevin John Powell, points to a New-Millennium direction in Art, which will open up New Art Vistas which will sooner than later also influence similar New Aesthetic directions in other of the Creative and Performing Art Expressions. (Kevin John Powell`s art 'oeuvres` appear in collections at The Russian Embassy, The South African Embassy, The Menninger Clinic Foundation, The National Arts Club, The United Nations, The Pan-American / Pan African Association Inc, and in several Private Collections of Art cognoscenti in New York City and Washington DC).

Kevin John Powell`s �avant-garde� art-explorations into the negative-positive space relationships in the Dimension-Instant and also into the Dimensionless Dimension, often evokes from viewers of his art �What is it?� (in response to which the artist calls the viewer`s attention to the fact that the enquirer should have no more need to ask that question, than she or he would have when encountering the view of beautiful cloud formations, without a concomitant need to ask the same question). Thus it is that the �avant-garde� Art of Kevin John Powell invites the attention of even the art �non cognoscenti� to relate to the infinite wonders of Shape and Space which he depicts in his drawings and paintings with the very same �Open-and Unprejudiced Feelings� that the viewer normally experiences when viewing those ever changing Shapes in nature and in the Firmament, which the very same viewer encounters and enjoys without the necessity to disrupt his or her enjoyment with the query �What is it?�

In fact, the �avant-garde� Art of Kevin John Powell represents no less significant a departure from the traditionally accepted aesthetic norms of art, than were those art-aesthetic-departures from tradition that provoked those former �New International Art Movements� which became extolled in the non-photographic-oriented art of The Dadaists, The Cubists; The Surrealists, The Accidentalists, The Pop Artist, The Minimalists, et al.

Nor does the art of Kevin John Powell project any particular national or cultural character or former art movement persuasions. Rather does the art of Kevin John Powell evoke beyond universal feelings that are prompted solely from a viewer`s encounters with Shape and Space conceptions that are related to both the Finite Earthly dimensions and the Infinite Dimensionless dimension. Indeed, the spiritual energy that is both silently and explosively evoked in a sensitive viewer of the Art of Kevin John Powell, was aptly described by a particular viewer as an aesthetic experience of such uniqueness, that the viewer described the Art of Kevin John Powell as both an explosive and silent introduction to New Aesthetic Vistas which made the viewer aware of the limitlessness of the emotional, spiritual and intellectual experiences that are within the yet untapped Aesthetic Vistas of all Scions and Daughters of the Creative and Performing Arts.

Given the fact that Kevin John Powell first became aware of his artistic talents during the period of his student-internship at the former �Resident Think Tank� Foundation Estate of the Panamerican / Panafrican Association � whenever he refers to the �avant-garde� aesthetic direction of his art, he casually refers to it as his �Papa Aesthetic� (in his obvious attempt to honour Our Foundation`s [commonly referred to as �the Pa/Pa�] support of his rise from a post high school laborer, to a college educated, intellectually maturing and currently the progenitor of a New Art Movement which the many admirers of his work unanimously refer to as a New Art Aesthetic which, in being devoid of any particular national or racial cultural identification, may become at least a seedling of Our New Millennium`s �New Universal Art Aesthetic and Movement.�

It is then Ms. Zolotow with Our apologies for having thusfar inadvertently subjected you to what Our endless numbers of correspondents ('toute le monde`) have commonly referred to as Our letters of Wagner Opera and Bruckner and Mahler symphonic length (and also sentences of Faulknerian length � We finally extend to you this expression of Our felicitations of this day to which Our artist-prot�g� (Kevin John Powell) would most assuredly add his own.

cc: M. HenriGeorges Polgar, Executive Director

NGO Delegate to the UN / ECOSOC

Mme. Lisa Mc Farren-Polgar, Associate Director

NGO Delegate to the UN / ECOSOC

The World Federation of United Nations Associations issued first-day covers and a limited-edition, hand-signed print by American artist Kevin Powell, to accompany the UN Endangered Species stamps issued March 13.

Powell was born in Moline, Ill., in 1957.

He currently is an artist-in-residence of the Panamerican-Panafrican Association, Inc. in Syracuse, NY. This non-governmental organization enjoys consultative status with the Economic and Social Council of the United Nations.

The association was founded in 1981 by concert pianist, composer, writer and cultural exchange specialist, Robert Starling Pritchard.

WFUNA is grateful to the Panamerican-Panafrican Association and to Robert Starling-Pritchard, for the important role they are playing in this project.

WFUNA released 750 copies of Powell's artwork titled Dimension I & II as Iris giclee prints.

"Giclee" is a French word that means "squirt or spurt" and, in the case of Iris inkjet printers, it alludes to the fact that the printer nozzles squirt approximately 4 million microscopic droplets of ink per second onto the paper as the image is formed.

Iris giclee printing is a relatively new process, that in the last few years, has become highly regarded by many of the world's most important fine artist, collectors, galleries and museums.

The original image is scanned into the computer, which can take hours, converting pixel by pixel into digital information, which is then color corrected at the monitor. The digital result is then proofed on the Iris printer. The artist then makes the changes and corrections.

Dimension I & II, the cut-out painting by Powell, is described by his patron, concert pianist Robert Starling-Pritchard, as the American artist's celebration of the beauty of nature on Earth and wherever life may have in the past existed and may in the present exist in the infinity of the firmament.

The image measures 9 inches by 12 inches and the paper measures 11 inches by 14 inches.

The funds derived from the sale of the federation philatelic items are used, to help finance its work in promoting public understanding of the United Nations.

On March 13, 1997, The World Federation of United Nations Associ-ations (WFUNA), issued a limited edition hand-signed print and First Day Cover, illustrating a work by American artist Kevin John Powell, entitled "Dimension I & II," to accompany the UN "Endangered Species" issue.

Powell uses an innovative cut-sculpture technique, which WFUNA is using for the first time on one of its cachets. The basic technique derives from that originally set forth by Picasso and Matisse, but the aesthetic principles from which Powell's works are derived, are described as "uniquely American," while at the same time being "international in scope and feeling."

For thirty years, WFUNA's art and philatelic program has been a vehicle to promote understanding of the United Nations. Kevin John Powell, with his contribution of "Dimension I & II," has joined a list of noted artists and public figures who have also offered their works to its cause, among them Marc Chagall, Keith Haring, Joan Miro and Andy Warhol.

Art prints cost $100, with or without stamps and FD cancellations. First Day Covers range from $2.70 for one cover with a block of four different 32 cents US-denominated Endangered Species stamps to $10.55 for the Powell cachet "Courier cover" with FD cancellations from Geneva, Vienna and New York or $16.25 for a cover designed by UN photographer John Isaac with all 12 stamps and the three-location FD cancellations.