RESIDENT ARTIST IN DRAWING, THE VICTORIA & ALBERT MUSEUM, LONDON 2006-08
"Drawing is a process with the potential to reveal or conceal, and Bowen makes a virtue of this contradiction, often layering past and present. During the residency she focused on drawing and its context, the intimate experience of handling the works in the V&A collections, and how the relationship between sight and touch might be translated through drawing. Her interest in the nature and qualities of paper, and in the life-histories of paper objects - especially things made to be handled such as albums, miniature folding books, patterns, and cut-paper work - has informed her latest work.
For Bowen this three-year residency, co-hosted by the Paper Conservation Studio, was an opportunity to make new work in response to her explorations of the V&A's collections, her conversations with curators and conservators, and her use of historic drawing tools such as a Claude Glass."
Gill Saunders, Head of Print
Gaze
Of
Dust
