There is a visual and perceptual oscillation between the materiality of paint and resin on canvas, and the depth of the celestial realms they infer.Ĭowen doesn’t try to recreate the past nor foresee the future. Cowen avoids the potential slide into the saccharine with an intuitive counterbalance of these candied hues with darker grounds and uncanny imagery. Thick speckles of these vibrant colours are often added at the end, suspended in resin on the surface of the canvas. Deep blues and purples are offset by bright accents of pink, orange and green. Scientific hypotheses are often wildly imaginative and creative, and Cowen’s poetic treatment of imagery, sourced and re-configured from a combination of New Scientist magazines and vintage photographs, points to a fundamental human pursuit of meaning and connection beyond the realm of the visible.Ĭowen creates environments with ‘washes’ and ‘pours’ that are equal parts intent and chance, and augments them with the addition of recognisable elements – plants, planets, figures, objects.
Her subjects include a hazmat-suited figure probing a pulsating vortex a man with wood-and-fabric wings outstretched like Icarus, testing an early flying device people in lab coats huddled over imaginary desks and microscopes figures shrouded in viewing and protective devices that are equal parts nostalgia, science and steampunk.
In her paintings, Kathryn Cowen employs a recognisably scientific vernacular. Where the two often diverge is in the nature of the conclusions they seek: science gives the impression of moving inexorably towards a logical endpoint, a complete unravelling of the mysteries of the universe art tends to revel in the inherent un-knowableness of things. The disciplines of art and science – at times almost indistinguishable, and at others irreconcilable – are twin avenues in the very human search for underlying patterns, substance and meaning. The artists invite you to delve into ‘The Land of The Green Ghosts’. They come together to explore our connection to the environment and the different ways that we perceive it in this time of grave ecological change. They put no stock into the expected, the accepted, and the regurgitated but stalwartly embrace painting as an avenue to discovery. It is this sense of wonder the artists wish to share with the viewer, a world renewed, seen afresh, without the constraints of rationality or the pervasive mundane. The artists present canvases saturated with the colours of implied bioluminescence, aurora borealis and other natural wonders. While each artist has her own approach – albeit psychological, spiritual, or environmental – they each surrender to the sensuous materiality of paint and allow process-based practice to take precedence. Each artist hopes to offer a new standpoint of the natural world, and the issues facing it, and are unapologetically driven by a subjective response to both landscape and to painting practice. This collaboratively conceived exhibition explores the many subtle and complex layers of the natural world through the unique perspectives of three contemporary female painters, Naomi Bishop, Kathryn Cowen and Valentina Palonen. The Land Of The Green Ghosts 15th - 25th June 2019 Broadhurst Gallery, Hazelhurst Arts Centreħ82 Kingsway Gymea NSW 2227 P 8536 5700 10am-5pm daily
You can see more of Kathryn's work on her website and instagram /wen While at Gunyah I will continue fossicking and refine this work in progress for presentation as part of the Movers and Shapers ‘Women and the Land' sculpture exhibition to be held at Hazelhurst Arts Centre in 2021. Desperately peering into microscopes looking for an answer, how will we adapt and grow in our relationship to nature in this new world order? The COVID-19 pandemic has diminished our perceived human power. The work is intended to question our ecological future and invite the viewer to imagine alternate realities and future biological forms. This new work will present specimens from a post apocalyptic world where the scale and relationship between fauna and fauna has been inverted, minuscule life forms rule and the light we live by has changed. Kathryn Cowen, Field Guide Specimens (studio installation), 2019, seed pods, twigs, date palm inflorescence branches, shells, rocks, expanding foam, paint, laboratory glassware, plastic figurinesĭuring my residency at Gunyah I plan to work on components of an installation using found natural objects and small sculptures, housed in scientific glassware.
0 kommentar(er)
