FORWARD Entering the Mysterious Realms of Andrea Kowch

Imagine going to the theater to see a collection of one act plays written and directed by Alfred Hitchcock, sets designed by Edward Hopper and casting, costume and make-up by Andrew Wyeth and Johannes Vermeer. This is what it is like to experience the Mysterious Realms of Andrea Kowch.

Andrea Kowch is a highly acclaimed American Magic Realist artist, (born 1986) in Detroit, Michigan. She attended the College for Creative Studies on scholarship, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in 2009. Kowch is the recipient of numerous prestigious awards and honors which include being selected by SCOPE NYC as one of the top one hundred emerging artists in the world in 2012. Her work can be found in many significant private and public collections worldwide.

A painter with undeniable skill, technique and talent, Andrea Kowch is likewise a consummate storyteller and astute observer of the connections and contradictions between the human experience and natural world. At first glance, her paintings have familiar, yet dream-like qualities that lure you in only to reveal haunting and seductively disquieting narratives. Kowch works with an ensemble of mostly female characters, real-life friends who model for her. She places them singularly or in groupings in her beloved rural landscape and architecture of the American Midwest or in farmhouse settings reminiscent of a bygone time. Kowch’s characters have been described as classical, timeless, inscrutable, detached, wistful, solitary, and stoic. She says “they each carry a specific quality that is uniquely them, and oftentimes, that particular quality happens to be one that I also possess or resonate with on some hidden level — as if each one of them, in some way or another, is an extension of me — and that is a factor that draws me in and to them, and subsequently inspires me to include them in my scenes.”

There are many other characters animate and inanimate, animals - domestic and wild, birds, insects, fire, wind, sea and weather that have significant roles and share the space with their human counterparts in Kowch’s paintings.

Each painting is a complete story, a wordless, mysterious allegorical drama, but one that is interconnected by a common theme with those that came before and after. Andrea Kowch explains this unifying theme is her desire “to remind viewers of these places that we feel no longer exist, and to recognize and honor them as a part of our history that is worth preserving. Symbolic explorations of the soul and current events concerning our environment are expressed through the incorporation of animals and other elements of the natural world to transform personal ideas into universal metaphors.”

Andrea Kowch’s acrylic paintings are composed of a myriad of exquisite details resulting in a three-dimensional quality that immerses viewers in the action as if they were watching a play staged in a theatre-in-the-round. An unexpected element of seeing Kowch’s works in person is the scale of the paintings. When viewing the images in a book, print or internet one might assume that they are quite large because of the thoughtfully composed complex layers of imagery, but a number of the works are quite small, some measuring no more than 8” x 8”. Creating paintings with so much detail and visual breadth on a small scale is truly remarkable and only reaffirms the accolades for Andrea Kowch’s mastery and talent.

Like the fifth wall in the theater, Kowch’s adept and well-orchestrated compositions create a realm beyond the boundaries of the picture frame. Her use of universal metaphors and symbols encourage multiple interpretations and serves as an invitation to the viewer to “step” into the scene and become an active participant in the narrative.

“The Feast” offers such an invitation to viewers to break the boundary of the frame. Kowch says “(I) leave things open to interpretation for viewers to attribute their own unique personal experiences to it. It’s almost like characters on a stage. So, each image is a story that I just want people to delve into and explore.”

The painting is an iconic example of Kowch’s ongoing exploration of the relationship and dualities between the human psyche and natural world. It is composed of numerous recurring themes and motifs that pervade her oeuvre including: enigmatic female characters; the lonely sprawling countryside; domestic settings and women’s work; open windows and doors; an assortment of animals; the bounty of the harvest; the wind as a powerful symbol of inevitable changes; a sense of time passed; and the ever present air of mystery and the unexpected.

According to Andrea Kowch, “The Feast” was a major artistic milestone because it marked a turning point in her series, her development and advancement as an artist, and it was her first large-scale piece (60 x 84 inches). Everything in the painting is scaled to life-size making the image even more compelling and “real” for the viewer.

The scene takes place at a farmhouse table. A palette of earthy, autumnal colors impart a subdued and slightly ominous mood. Three female characters gather round the table, each engrossed in their own thoughts and space. Their hair, windblown, is wild and askew. Two of the women are seated at the table and the third stands in the middle between them. The table is laden with a bounty of fresh vegetables from the harvest – parsnips, carrots, turnips, corn and onions, a plate of raw salmon fillets, a large pot of soup, two serving bowls of soup, a torn loaf of bread, a brown chicken and a fluffy white one and white feathers scattered about the tabletop.

The woman on the viewer’s left sits in a dark chair on the side of the table. She is wearing a rust-colored floral print dress. Her dark eyes wide and intense, she looks directly at the viewer seated across from her. There is a bowl of soup with a spoon and a fly on the rim placed in front of her. She holds a piece of bread in one hand seemingly unaware of the brown chicken that pecks greedily at her food, its watchful eye focused on the viewer.

Is the woman unsettled because an uninvited guest interrupted her meal? Is her cold stare one of unwelcome or disdain or something more? Should she be warned about the danger posed by the chicken’s sharp open beak? Behind the woman is an open door with two bony snarling dogs fighting over what appears to be a bloody animal leg. Teeth bared, eyes wild, this is no idle play. Further in the distance an old barn, a flock of birds and tracks leading to and from the barn can be seen through the doorway. The ferociousness of the dogs, the glaring eye of the chicken, the woman’s stern mask-like face juxtaposed with the bucolic landscape and bountiful feast creates a sense of vulnerability, unease and palpable tension that boils over engulfing the viewer.

The woman in the middle is standing at the table. She is neatly dressed in a light-brown and tan patterned frock and is completely absorbed in the task of ladling soup from a large pot into her empty bowl. Her auburn hair is blown from side to side as if a strong wind is coming from behind her. She is positioned in front of two multi-paned windows with filmy white curtains. One window is closed; the other opened half way, its sheer curtains billowing in the breeze. A black and gray chicken, wings upraised, totters on the sill buffeted by the wind. The view outside of the windows reveals a vast open field with gently rolling hills covered with hay-yellow prairie grass. What appears to be wagon tracks or a dirt trail can be seen leading to the barn. Her hair and the precarious stance of the chicken are inconsistent with the breeze blowing in the room. It is as if the wind is a unique presence, an invisible force, moving at its own direction. Is the woman aware of the wind? Why is she so absorbed in her task that she ignores her counterparts? Do the windows behind her – closed and only partially open symbolize her guarded thoughts and feelings?

The third woman is seated at the opposite end of the table, her gaze inscrutable. She is wearing a dusty rose and pale butter-yellow dress that compliments the tones of her perfect porcelain skin. She has one arm in her lap, the other elbow bent as she mechanically lifts a spoonful of soup towards her mouth. The four-paned window behind her is swung open against the wall showing more of the open field and hills. Her blond hair is being sucked backwards towards the window by the powerful force of the contrary wind, yet she seems completely unaware of this disturbance. The woman’s composure provides no clues to her thoughts. How can she sit so self-contained and unaware of all that is taking place around her?

All of the action in the scene is frozen in mid-movement - the pecking chicken, ladling of soup, lifting of the spoon, billowing curtains, teetering chicken and fighting dogs. Everything is portrayed in stop action motion except the wind. This invisible character, always changing directions, inevitable, and unpredictable propels the action in the composition and symbolizes underlying currents of emotion, transformation and a powerful spiritual force.

Andrea Kowch’s vision, talent, skill and mastery as a Magic Realist painter and consummate storyteller are undeniable, but perhaps her greatest magic is the ability to create mysterious realms where the viewer can pull up a chair, take a seat at the table, have a cup of tea, feel the wind, smell the smoke, hear the call of the animals and imagine what happens next.

Education Consultant, Museum of Art - DeLand