According to Bowie, art affects intuitive secrets between the material world, the creator, and the viewer.

The artist is interested in the effects of heat application and the implications of changeability on surfaces. Her work also reflects her fascination with the metaphysical and physical concept of aggregates. For example, she explores the properties of glass, blown or cast created by heating silica (quartz/sand), lime, and sodium in various temperatures and then introduced to copper, a compatible element.

During a studio visit, one may observe the artist working on multiples in anticipation of loss and as a way of growing her knowledge. Working between glass, rocks, and ceramics she evokes deep time perception, effectively decentering human involvement, aligning with Object Oriented Ontology theory.

Bowie draws inspiration from art movements such as Arte Povera, whose artists challenged traditional gallery values by using unconventional processes and the remnants of  ‘world-building’ materials.

She could be described as a type of contemporary alchemist, someone interested in the transformation of matter in an attempt to find a universal mixture. We argue the artist’s work is not so much about process… It is a process… that is where the magic is.

The John B. Aird Gallery is excited to present Bowie’s Fall to Centre, an in-situ materials-based sculptural installation along with street-facing videos this autumn!

ARTIST STATEMENT

How to write and talk about work when it is in a constant state of evolving seems like a Sisyphean task, an upward grind of an immense stone. Give me a few winters of walking and perhaps I may burnish my thoughts eloquently and speak to intentions with careful words, but time doesn’t work that way and so here we are in an adjustable time lag. I enter the studio daily always working, playing, learning- a retreat to the solace that being with the elemental brings. A need to be in their presence, awestruck and humbled, making, touching, feeling what our collaboration may bring- what might we achieve together? Just as I retreat to the forest, I feel safe and loved in this process, something that was missing throughout my childhood. Watching children be bombed and starved in real time this past year has shaken my faith and triggered deep hurts. Wanting to speak up and protect those being harmed but feeling frozen and helpless- I turn to my art, my family, and my more than human community in surrounding fields and forest. The business of making, hands and mind occupied;  washing buckets, floors, a fall to center, turtling within to a place where I am capable and known.

This past spring through the generous gift of a Chalmers Professional Development grant I had the opportunity to travel to the PNW and work with molten hot glass at the Pilchuck School of Glass. I learned to gather hot glass on a steel rod, constant turning and responding to the material is needed so it doesn’t fall apart, the voice of my generous and caring instructor, Jennifer Bueno reminding me to ‘fall to center’ has become a needed mantra.

In this exhibition, I invite you to a sacred space that may resemble a studio, a forest, a laboratory- a sliver of an inner world, a passage to an elemental word, a safe place created to deal with grief, pain, and hope. A fall to center, a prayer I make with my hands.

During the fall season as the leaves change, I will be activating the gallery as a container periodically, noticing the shift and changes that may come with proximity.

Deep gratitude to Carla Garnet and the Aird Gallery for this opportunity.

BIOGRAPHY

D’Andrea Bowie is an artist living and working in the rural outskirts of Toronto. Her current research investigates contemporary propositions when recontextualizing the monument, specifically through a feminist and materialistic lens that highlights reciprocity between maker, material, and time. D’Andrea has recently completed a Master of Fine Arts from York University where she was awarded an SSHRC Research Scholarship, CGS Master’s Scholarship, and the Susan Crocker and John Hunkin Award. As a mature student, D’Andrea completed her BFA at OCADU in Sculpture & Installation in 2017 where she was the recipient of numerous scholarships and awards. Her work has been included in multiple group shows as well as the solo exhibition, Affordance, at the Station Gallery in Whitby. Along with gallery exhibitions, her work has also been shown in community spaces and alternative outdoor spaces and is held in private collections internationally.

~ As I live and love on this land and commit to caring for it, I acknowledge the people who have been stewards of it for time immemorial. We stand on the traditional lands of many nations including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Haudenosaunee, and the Wendat peoples; the GTA  continues to be home to many diverse First Nations people. The area I reside in is covered by Treaty 13 signed with the Mississaugas of the Credit, and the Williams Treaties signed with multiple Mississaugas and Chippewa bands. We are also part of the Dish With One Spoon  Treaty, an agreement to share and protect the land so that no one’s dish is ever empty. As I continue to figure out how to be a good treaty person, learning and speaking of its history helps keep its inhabitants human and non in living memory. The land we stand on holds a deep geological history that bears acknowledging, I express gratitude to the rocks and minerals that remain beneath our feet and those extracted to build and power this crazy world around us and from which I make my art

D’Andrea Bowie