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Mark BowersYes, But Does It Float - Original Surreal Oil Painting with Symbolic Imagery2012
2012
About the Item
Mark Bowers- Artist Statement
With the depiction of landscape playing such a central role in the history of North American art, it seemed to offer many of the critical possibilities I was looking for, and it felt more and more like something I have always known. Something I could easily apply, stage, and manipulate as a diary.
My work consists of small-scale highly detailed landscape paintings. They are inspired by the comfort, trepidation, and beauty found in the mundane Chicago Suburbs. I combine nature, decorative house wares, municipal structures, and personal artifacts to hint at current life and future implications in the orchestration of these elements. Each work in the series is a portrait of a search for markers on a journey, an attempt to learn from what is palpable and to appreciate the intangible. The paintings are meant to suggest the truth in the un-idealized moment--the actual truth only exists off the edges of my canvas, off stage, and in the experience of the viewer. Painting the objects in these compositions is like positioning characters on stage in a play, each adding to the dramatization
Mark Bowers
b. 1977
St. Joseph, MI
Exhibitions
2013 American Painting Today: Physical and Visceral, Krasl Art Center, St. Joseph, MI
2012 Fort Wayne Art Museum, Contemporary Realism Biennial, Fort Wayne, IN
Rockford Art Museum Midwestern Biennial, Rockford, IL
Ann Brierly Gallery, Winnetka, IL
2009 Art Chicago, Represented by Ann Nathan Gallery, Merchandise Mart, Chicago, IL
Ann Brierly Gallery, Winnetka, IL
2007 Beverly Arts Center Biennial, Chicago, IL
Ann Brierly Gallery, Winnetka, IL
2005 Ann Brierly Gallery, Winnetka, IL
2003 Ann Brierly Gallery, Winnetka, IL
Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
2001 The Box Factory Gallery, St. Joseph, MI
2000 John G. Blank Center for the Arts, Michigan City, IN
Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
Awards
2005-6 Arts Recognition Award and talent Search Program, National Foundation for the Advancement in the Arts
2002 Rhode Island School of Design, Department of Art Education, Leonore Pernaveau Gerlach Memorial Scholarship
1996 Michigan State University, Creative Arts Scholarship
Residency
2012-13 Artist in Residence, The Ragdale Foundation, Lake Forrest, IL
2010 Frankel Anderson Fellow, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
2009 Artist in Residence, Vermont Studio Center, Johnson, VT
Professional Experiences
2003-present
Tenured Visual Arts Educator, New Trier Township High School District, Winnetka, IL
2001 Manager of Classroom Programs/Preparator, South Bend Regional Museum of Art, SBRMA, South Bend, IN
Education
2003 MAT w/honors, Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, RI
2000 BFA w/honors, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI
- Creator:Mark Bowers (1977, American)
- Creation Year:2012
- Dimensions:Height: 21.75 in (55.25 cm)Width: 14.75 in (37.47 cm)
- Medium:
- Movement & Style:
- Period:
- Condition:Artwork is framed. Contact gallery for details.
- Gallery Location:Chicago, IL
- Reference Number:Seller: MJB0041stDibs: LU55431751953
Mark Bowers
There has always been timelessness in the appreciation of landscape painting, and at times an almost visceral or spiritual response. However, the contemporary quotidian landscape seems striped of some of these earlier qualities—it is what I see and drive through daily. In this environment, I search for the critical possibilities, vignettes I can easily apply, stage, and manipulate as a diary. My work consists of small-scale highly detailed landscape paintings. They are inspired by the comfort, trepidation, and beauty found in the mundane Chicago Suburban existence. I combine nature, decorative house wares, municipal structures, and personal artifacts to hint at current life and future implications in the orchestration of these elements. Each work in the series is a portrait of a search for markers on a journey, an attempt to learn from what is palpable and to appreciate the intangible. The paintings are meant to suggest the truth in the un-idealized moment--the actual truth only exists off the edges of my canvas, off stage, and in the experience of the viewer. Drawing the objects in these paintings is like positioning characters on stage in a play, each adding to the dramatization. For example, the sky’s ‘role’ embodies a duality of expansive hopefulness and luminous foreshadowing; smoke is the symbol for the unknown, while water towers denote conjured romantic outcomes, as shadows lure the impractical. They embody the background and visual noise of an anxiety within the consolation of present day living.
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Mark Bowers
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MJB014
TRUE NORTH PAINTINGS
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With the depiction of landscape playing such a central role in the history of North American art, it seemed to offer many of the critical possibilities I was looking for, and it felt more and more like something I have always known. Something I could easily apply, stage, and manipulate as a diary.
My work consists of small-scale highly detailed landscape paintings. They are inspired by the comfort, trepidation, and beauty found in the mundane Chicago Suburbs. I combine nature, decorative house wares...
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21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Paintings
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