Artist: Claire Bowen
Title: Rise and Shine
Medium: Mixed-media collage with aluminum foil on heavyweight watercolor paper
Dimensions: 11 x 8 ½ inches
Price: $185
Artist Statement: This heavily textured work uses pieces of aluminum foil as collage elements to express light and aspiration. Softly geometric shapes provide a foundation from which the brighter, reflective elements “take off,” suggesting buoyancy. The asemic writing serves as a structure to guide the upward movement.
Artist Bio: Color. Light. Wonder.
Engaged in the arts from childhood, Claire Bowen studied fine art at the University of Georgia—which included a semester in Cortona, Italy—finishing with a BA in art from Columbus State University. She has worked with artists George Stillman, Josiah L.M. Baird, and Doug Himes.
Interested in “geometry but not math,” Bowen uses pattern, color, and organic geometric shapes to create abstract images. Her subjects are often landscape, including aerial views; seascape; and florals.
Bowen works chiefly in acrylic, collage, and mixed media, and she enjoys combining disparate elements—like placing a bold block of color next to detailed drawing or using a piece of trash as collage.
Bowen’s broader themes deal with nature, freedom, beauty, and the spiritual. Ultimately, she strives for work that spurs thinking as well as feeling. “Paintings should fascinate, feel personal, and at the same time be transcendent. When the viewer approaches a painting and expects to be AFFECTED, essentially saying, ‘Beam me up, Scotty,’ and the art DOES…that’s what I’m after.”
