Recent works

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Inspired by the 'Duino Elegies' series by the poet Rilke, Bowman’s exhibition continues her long-standing interest in the material life of memory, particularly the power of textures to evoke the depth of the past. While we don’t all share her experience in Western Victoria, we can jointly imagine the world that is evoked. Perhaps there’s even something about the rolling landscape of this region that is especially conducive to memory. The 'Duino Elegies' were written in the shadow of the machine age, which threatened to replace all expression with function. Today we live in the thrall of the screen age, which attempts to flush out all shadows in the stroboscopic excess of images. As fellow Western Victorian writer Gerald Murnane once wrote, ‘the invisible is only what is too brightly lit.’ We should embrace Bowman’s work like a root that connects us to the dark rich soil below.
- Kevin Murray