The Art of George M Bowles
Located in Chicago IL, George M Bowles is a painter inspired by music and philosophy-producing studies in freeform zen abstract expressionism
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Acrylics and Sharpie on canvas
After taking nearly ten years off from painting in general (working in graphic design and audio recording), I again started painting up on a whim to make some xmas presents in 2004 which created a new tangent into fine art (and hopefully a grad degree and really, just more art in general whatever the medium). I have done 3 series over the last few years which have inspired a new style that involves spreading acrylics across multiple canvases while listening to contemporary (and classic!) jazz, heavy metal, punk/indie and experimental electronic music. I find this approach is affected as much by a very diverse range of music as by the subconscious becoming conscious. In this process, the next step I take is separating the series of canvases and working on them in waves individually which lets the work take off on a more specified composition. This limits the color pallette to what I am working on and insures that the pieces will be thematic in both a color sense and temporal while letting them breathe creatively. I have had a few small gallery shows where I have received very positive and enlightening comments from both artists and art afficionados/buyers; such as comparisons to everything from Japanese Zen brush painting to colorful Costa Rican oil painting or even sci-fi landscaping. Also, people usually find a definite graphic design influence due to schooling in visual communications and professional experience in the field. This is most evident in the finishing touches: a permanent marker (and sometimes felt tip pen) used to shade and contour, giving them a striking graphic quality that brings to mind topographical maps and swirling, dreamlike landscapes. I think that they express a unique point of view from a visionary artist out of a multi-disciplinary art curriculum (graduate 1999, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago) but with an almost outside artist or primitive take on technique; or just call it experimental art such as the abstract expressionists and surrealists, or even graffiti artists and you get the picture. Check it out...