Bowery Gallery

Pam Bowers Invitational Exhibition, “Memento Mori” at Bowery Gallery in Chelsea, June 19 – July 7, re-examines the motif of still life set in the landscape as a vehicle for editation on the transitory nature of experience. Using a moody, saturated palette and rich, painterly approach Bowers depicts fish, birds, and fruit, as well as biological specimens in jars set within landscapes possessing a sensuality evocative of 17thcentury Neapolitan still life painting, yet imbued with a quality of timelessness that embraces both past and contemporary experience. They are highly personal and enigmatic works that hint at mysteries beyond the reach of comprehension.

The stories that Bowers tells in these works are more often experienced and felt rather than known, her intent being to “to reach the intellect through the senses.” The paintings are filled with echoes of intuitive meaning, evoking a sense of pathos through empathy with the creatures she depicts, taken out of the safety of their own environments and immersed in a liminal world of twilight hillsides, stormy seas, and fiery infernos. The paintings reference images across diverse sources including mythic history, literature, the history of art, and alchemy, thus merging contemporary experience with echoes of traditions to create a timeless, richly evocative world. Barry Nemett, writer, painter and Chair of the Painting Department at Maryland College Institute of Art describes her work as: “something thrillingly eerie and hard to define, by floating us into the black, ambiguous waters of the sublime.”

Bowers has exhibited her work the at International School of Art, in Montecastello di Vibio, Umbria, Italy; The Hungarian University of Fine Arts, in Budapest, Hungary; The Ecole Nationale d'Architecture, in Rabat, Morocco and nationally at ARC and WMG galleries in Chicago, at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, St. Mary's College and was featured in last years Annual Juried Special Exhibition at the Bowery, among other U.S. and international venues. She has spoken on her work as a visiting artist at The Luxun Academy of Fine Art in Shenyang, China and has upcoming exhibits in Guiliin, China and Gubbio, Italy.

A Chicago native, Bowers is on the Art Department faculty at the University of South Carolina and also teaches in Umbria, Italy.