EVENT: "Between Childhood and Adulthood," an exhibit of oil paintings by Anna Killian

Alabama artist Anna Killian looks back to her childhood for the subject of a new group of paintings now on display in the Gallery at the Art and Music Library of the University of Rochester. The small-scale oil paintings show corners and cubbyholes with handwritten messages about rules for good behavior and keeping clean--typical advice for every child.

As she painted them, Killian said she thought about her own "role as child in relation to the structure of my family." The eight paintings in the exhibit, titled "Between Childhood and Adulthood," present a series of domestic vignettes in soft, muted colors. Killian was forced to work close to these small canvases and, through that process, created a feeling of intimacy as she narrowed in on a corner of a room or an object.

Killian is an adjunct professor of drawing and painting at the University of Montevallo in Montevallo, Ala. A native of Alabama, she studied painting at Montevallo and completed her master of fine arts degree in painting at the University of Florida at Gainesville. She recently showed her work in the National Small Works Exhibition in Cobleskill, N.Y.; Spring Salon 2003 at the Limner Gallery in Manhattan, and in the Texas National Competition in Nacogdoches, Texas.

For this latest project, Killian also wrote down some of her childhood memories. "It is at this transitional state, between childhood and adulthood, that I am calling into question and/or accepting the organizational system of rules and regulations my family provided," she stated.

Hours for the exhibit are 9 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday; 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Friday; noon to 5 p.m. Saturday; and noon to 10 p.m. Sunday at the gallery, located on the ground floor of Rush Rhees Library on the University's River Campus. The show continues through Monday, Sept. 29.