ANDREA KOWCH: THE QUINTESSENTIAL FIGURATIVE REALIST

Painter of Magic, Symbols, & Allegories

Since the turn of the 20th century, art historians and curators have debated the relative merits of representational versus abstract art. Indeed, in the 100 years after 1900, the examples of art depicting nature in a representational fashion shrank as the Fauvists, Suprematists, Cubists, Vorticists, Dadaists, Constructivists and Abstract Expressionists, among others, played with, distorted and, ultimately, abandoned realism as a mechanism of artistic expression. But, “what goes around comes around,” and what many artists of the late 20th and early 21st centuries have (re)discovered is that abstraction, no matter how visually compelling, cannot reliably convey meaning and emotion, let alone messages about subjects of deep significance such as love, war, hate, oppression, or happiness.

Fortunately for the viewing public, the thirst among many currently living artists to project meaning and touch the emotions of viewers has created a whole new generation of, dare I say it, figurative realists artists who depict tangible persons in discernible places confronting identifiable situations. Moreover, in this resurgence of realism, we can once again celebrate allegory and metaphor, fantasy and mystery. These renascent realists and, in particular those who focus on human beings and people-centric situations, have gone back to an earlier time and mastered the methods and techniques that artists at one time had to possess in order to be worthy of the name. In their quest to create unique, expressive, representational work, these 21st century realists have once again mastered the science of rendering and depiction that actually requires particular technical skill to achieve.

Today, at the very top of this group of artists is Andrea Kowch, a consummate figurative painter who has wedded her prodigious technical skills with deeply evocative and thought-provoking scenes that betray her protagonists’ (and our) lives for the ambiguous mysteries they are. She has been called an American Magic Realist, a Symbolist and a painter of allegories but, whatever label applies, Andrea is an unmatched painter of women in settings that betray their vulnerabilities, their spiritual defenses and their strengths, sometimes separately and sometimes all at once.

Against a backdrop of carefully conceived landscapes and interiors, her confident and often seemingly detached yet resilient women stand above a usually cryptic and peculiar fray, undertaking their comings and goings in circumstances that are at once archetypal, equivocal and, often, unsettling. These abstruse depictions magically carry us, paradoxically and simultaneously, both outside ourselves and deep into the very center of our own personal dilemmas. Adding to this lusciousness, Andrea’s spaces are often uniquely infused with a combination of poise and uneasiness that fill us with a sense of marvel about our own lives as well as wonder about the persons depicted.

As one views Andrea’s work, they will see that certain motifs emerge again and again. First, the figures, which are usually young women, appear introverted, stoic, indignant, indifferent or, sometimes, focused on an inner rhythm which the viewer can discern but cannot deconstruct.

Second, these women frequently appear in settings that are windy, stormy, unsettled and, sometimes, reflective of calamity, either a disaster that one senses is coming or one that is in progress. Third, all of the paintings possess an urgent, ominous or, occasionally, peaceful undertone that infuses the work with an otherworldly, even numinous, quality. Yet, despite the often troubled or supernatural circumstances, these women never seem overwhelmed or frightened. Rather, they more often than not reflect a self-sufficient detachment from their surroundings. Finally, there is frequently a juxtaposition between the subjects and some activity that is taking place beyond them, usually in a landscape behind or in the distance through a window.

These qualities emerge in Andrea’s earliest paintings and continue to reverberate through her more recent work. For example, in The Visitors, we see farm women hard at work in a rustic kitchen. But they are not alone. Coming in through the windows are birds, numerous black birds, which disrupt the scene and help themselves to the food.

As the pies bake, the windblown hair of the women implies a storm outside, but the women seem strangely detached from the disruption caused by the birds, tending to gaze at the viewer or at the birds or down at their work with smirks or looks of tolerant indifference. We sense the wind blowing the wheat outside and feel the heat of the stove as the curtains sway in the breeze yet we wonder at why these women toil and what relation exists between them. The scene is rustic, and more than just slightly surreal.

These issues play out again in Andrea’s other “Kitchen Paintings,” works in which women eat, serve or prepare food against a backdrop of portentous winds, curious and sometimes irritated animals, or disasters in progress. And, as always, the depicted women display a peculiar detachment that is sometimes a mixture of exasperation, apathy and hypnotic trance. In addition to The Visitors, the pinnacle examples from this series include The Feast and An Invitation. In The Feast, a group of “farm women,” whom one might rightly conclude are sisters, eat soup at the kitchen table as chickens peck at the food and dogs in the doorway fight over what appears to be a piece of meat. The women, their hair as windblown as the curtains behind them, seem oddly restrained, as if the circumstances were commonplace and there is nothing more to say. Nevertheless, the woman on the left gives a steely glance at the viewer as if to ask, “Why are you here?”

Likewise, in An Invitation, a similar group of women eat at a table on the porch of an aging, unpainted farm house as irate animals pick at the food. In the background, a white horse gallops toward a stormy horizon. Again, a private, contemplative world seems to possess each woman, one of whom is so distracted by her inner visions that she misses her teacup as she pours the cream. As in The Feast, the woman in the left foreground glowers at the viewer although one is never sure if she is looking at us or through us.

In the “Calamity Paintings,” Andrea juxtaposes her subjects against catastrophes occurring around them, often fires blazing in the background. In Flame, a young woman stares with an expression of careless indignation upon the intruding viewer while eating a breakfast of flapjacks and plums. Meanwhile, her dog, looking the other way, watches a hay wagon burn in the field beyond. One asks, is the woman the one who set the fire, or, does the fire symbolize the subject’s inner response to her circumstances, or the long-awaited resurrection and rebirth of her existence. The answer is always left for the viewer to resolve. Similarly, in another calamity painting, No Turning Back, the subject, her bound hands having snapped their tether, stands thigh deep in a wheat field that is ablaze, the fire heading toward the weathered, old frame house behind her as birds, curtains and the subject’s hat blow in the wind. We want to ask ourselves, what were the young woman’s (now broken) bonds and circumstances, and was the effort to break them so intense that it set the entire landscape ablaze? Other calamity paintings emphasize tornadoes (reminiscent of John Steuart Curry), crashing waves and flocks of agitated birds.

Finally, in the “Lone Woman Paintings,” the viewer confronts a single woman who is anticipating what is to come, reflecting on what has occurred or reveling in a circumstance around her that only she can (or cannot) control. In Reunion, a young woman sits on a brocaded seat in an ancient railcar clutching a gift as her dog sits beside her. In the compartment’s window we see a truck coming up alongside the train. The young woman’s forlorn visage betrays her anticipation of the reunion that is apparently at hand. In The Courtiers, a powerful woman, obviously possessed of an ability to speak to the animals, communes with a flock of sandhill cranes as she gently grasps the leash of her mascot, an albino peacock. Each bird exudes its own personality as the flock coalesces around its queen, paying homage to the human from whom they derive a sense of belonging, of purpose. Likewise, the peacock fans its tail feathers in a momentous display of power and magic. In the background, the farmhouse sits in a stubbled field, the ground fog betraying a dropping temperature as dusk turns to night or, perhaps, dawn turns to day.

When one surveys the breadth and depth of Andrea Kowch’s work, they realize that she is more than an artist, she is the quintessential figurative realist painter—a conjurer of magic, symbols and allegories that challenge the viewer to both puzzle over what may have overtly happened in the scene before them and what is happening and has happened in their own lives, their own souls. The work thus displays a beguiling ability to depict scenes of wonder while challenging viewers to ponder parallels about and within themselves. When one views Andrea’s work, they rejoice in the resurgence of both realism and the commitment of a new generation of painters to invest themselves in learning the art and science of depiction and portrayal, nature and symbol.

Steven Alan Bennett

Figurative Realist Art Collector & Curator

Steven Alan Bennett and Dr. Elaine Melotti Schmidt established The Bennett Collection of Women Realists® in 2009. The two collectors limit their collection to figurative realist paintings of women by women artists. The Collection includes work by some of the most exciting women painters currently working: Julie Bell, Margaret Bowland, Aleah Chapin, Aneka Ingold, Andrea Kowch, Alyssa Monks, Katie O’Hagan and dozens of others on the cutting edge of figurative realism. In addition, the Collection includes historic women painters from across the generations, including Gertrude Abercrombie, Artemisia Gentileschi, Elaine de Kooning, and many others.