STEPHEN BOWERS
UNEARTHED
STEPHEN BOWERS UNEARTHED 5 – 29 September 2018 www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/stephenbowers
Left: Stephen Bowers in his studio, July 2018 Cover: Exotic Bird and Strange Fruit Platter, 2018, wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H7 x D41 cm
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UNEARTHED Willows, Cockatoos, and Strange Fruit The artwork of Stephen Bowers Stephen Bowers is one of Australia’s leading ceramic artists, but until now his work has rarely been seen in the UK. Known for his sumptuous, layered, painterly vitreous surfaces and direct visual literacy, his work is at once strangely familiar, yet simultaneously mysterious. Bowers is a largely self taught artist, but his engagement with ceramics has been a full, comprehensive journey starting with a Leachian material thoroughness, involving in all aspects of production, to his contemporary practice where underglaze, overglaze and lustre are painted onto ‘blank’ forms made by others. In this practice he departs from traditional studio or craft pottery traditions to replicate the industrial separation of processes (which has actually been with us since Minoan times). In some ways his works reference the complex, painted, precious and highly decorated surfaces of Royal Copenhagen’s Flora Danica or Sèvres porcelain, but they also allude to the detailed printed surfaces of mass-produced Staffordshire transferware. He is no respecter of material hierarchies and works are unashamedly made in earthenware, an imitative clay body which he loves for its ability to bring out brightness and retain graphic fidelity in a wide range of underglaze colours. His visual source materials are diverse and eclectic embracing high art and comic strips as well as industrially produced decorative arts including: printed wallpapers, engravings, textiles and transferwares. In Bowers skilled, painterly hands these all meld and melt into rich, complex, intriguing glassy surfaces.
The artwork evidences not only a comprehensive material understanding, ease and proficiency, but also a deep scholarly basis in his compositions. An inveterate bibliophile and collector of transferware, he has developed a deep knowledge of applied/decorative arts as well as botanical and travel illustration, partly through his wonderful collection of antique books and journals. Unable to resist antiquarian book stores, antique markets or dodgy car-boots sales, I was once privy to his acquisition of a beautiful 18th century bible (minus its cover) for a bargain price in a Cockermouth book shop. He subsequently took it back to Adelaide, had it re-bound and added to his impressive personal library in his historic home, where walls are covered with prints, Staffordshire wares and painted Chinese porcelains. Bowers’ decorative compositions are complex, floating tromp l’oeil collages of intricately painted shards, drawn from disparate sources. Shadows are cast on backgrounds reminiscent of the marbled end-papers of antique books, or others made with a ‘hedonistic slap dash’ of applied colour. Then there is his intrigue in melding flat painterly surface with three dimensional form as evidenced by his skulls and outrageously opulent Staffordshire dogs.
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He admits to being ‘entranced by the natural world and delighting in patterns-found-in-nature and nature-found-in-patterns’, but a benign perversity lies at the heart of his work. The insistence on painstaking hand-painted detail (including the appropriation of copper plate engraved line and dot) is achieved through additive layers of technique, materials and very fine brush work. The end-polish result belies the preparatory mess and chaos often involved in setting up the background. Image and pattern within his works can appear to be decorative cliche’s, but there is danger of deceit in the simple glance. There is not only a visual depth to Bowers’ surfaces, but they also say more than simple decorative pastiche. He plays with the historical and cultural signifiers associated with certain iconographies and Australian ‘cliches’ recur in his work. Parrots and cockatoos, are signature images, which he has described as being like personal ‘totems’, symbolic birds from his childhood. To those of us who have lived our lives in the Northern hemisphere these are exotic creatures, but they were ever-present in the once rural Sylvania where Bowers grew up. It has been suggested that for him they are ‘minatory symbols of larrikin defiance in the face of relentless urbanisation’.1 Other icons include Stubb’s Kongorou
and the Sydney Harbour bridge. Surfaces are also embedded with fragments of William Morris wallpapers, Toile de Jouy fabrics, and the characters from Tenniel’s original illustrations for Alice in Wonderland that have been seemingly relocated to Australia. There are always more reasons than the purely decorative for their appropriation. Bowers is addicted to his art, when not working on ceramic surfaces, in his spare moments he will be found painting watercolours. He describes his practice as a ‘meditative retreat from the world’… Unearthed represents a characteristic cross-section of his work, ideas, techniques and interests. As well as a simple visual delight, there is much to discover in the decorative detail, iconography, whimsical humour and surreal conjunctions of his compositions. Paul Scott, July 2018
1 John Neylon in Stephen Bowers, Beyond Bravura, Wakefield Press, 2013, p24
Bowers’ images are more than simple acts of decorative appropriation and whimsy. Narratives are suggested; arrangements and juxtapositions invite questions and offer viewers opportunities to concoct narratives of their own. The Art of Camouflage, Christopher Menz
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William Morris Bird and Anemone Fragment Bowl, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H7 x D39 cm
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The detail and complexity of Bowers’ compositions leave the viewer in an enchanted state‌ his work touches on an enduring interest in the legacy of the fantastic world of the antipodes. Dr Kevin Murray, Beyond Bravura, Wakefield Press, 2013
Jouy Flowers and Foliage Fragment Plate, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H5 x D9 cm
William Morris Compton Fragment Bowl, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H4 x D22 cm
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White Rabbit Shard Bowl, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H5 x D21 cm
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William Morris Tulip and Willow Fragment Plate, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze enamel decal to base, H5 x D21 cm
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Blue Willow Shard Bowl, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H6 x D18 cm
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Exotic Bird and Strange Fruit Platter, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H7 x D41 cm
The theme of nature into pattern and pattern within nature is explored in the William Morris camouflage plate series, where samples of patterns from familiar and less familiar sources, variously referencing blue and white tropes and William Morris wallpapers, jostle for attention. Juxtaposed amongst these abstracted passages of decorative design are carefully painted cockatoos or parrots, which appear on each plate. ‘Surface Tension: the ceramic art of Stephen Bowers’, John Neylon, Beyond Bravura, Wakefield Press, 2013, p39
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Crimson Rosella Camouflage Bowl, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H6 x D31 cm
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Mugs, 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, underglaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze lustre, enamel and decal to base, approx H10 x W12 x D8.5 cm each
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The Pair of Staffordshire Dogs is considerably more than a mantelpiece ornament. As a one-off, hand-built ‘artist’s proof’ pair, they are somewhat over-scale in comparison with many nineteenthcentury prototypes upon which they are based. Again, through changes of scale and use of decoration, Bowers manipulates expectations. Staffordshire ornaments were normally decorated in a rather hasty manner and sometimes quite crudely, features that remain part of their appeal today. Bower’s dogs in contrast are not from any generic Staffordshire kennel. These are a rare strain and are given the extraordinary decorative treatment. They are lavishly gilded and overlaid with a complex arrangement of circular patterns, several of them recognisable Morris furnishings designs, as well as late eighteenth-century Napoleonic French fabric and toile designs. Typically, there is a quiet subtext to all this lavish design work. It is no accident these mantelpiece forms are covered with wallpaper and home furnishing designs. Bowers is obliquely commentating on patterns-in-nature and how nature is appropriated and consumed in patterns, which, in turn, condition and reflect our relationships to, and expectations of, the natural world. The Art of Camouflage, Christopher Menz
Pair of Staffordshire Dogs, 2014 slip-cast earthenware, underglaze colour, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, enamel, H45 x W40 x D18 cm each
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Stephen Bowers makes pottery that fires the imagination. He combines rich, modern life experiences with skills and traditions that stretch back thousands of years to create complex works full of wonder. From familiar, everyday items, to the transformative alchemy of deluxe and super deluxe bravura museum pieces, his art is acclaimed and collected across Australia and overseas. Damon Moon, Beyond Bravura, Wakefield Press, 2013
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Down On His Luck (Art Investor’s Skull), 2018 slip cast earthenware, hand-detailed, metal oxides, underglaze colour, clear glaze, H17 x W12 cm
Blue Willow Harbor (Explorer’s Skull), 2018 slip cast earthenware, hand-detailed, metal oxides, underglaze colour, clear glaze, H17 x W12 cm
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Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass and What Alice Found There greatly impressed me as a child. They impressed me even more when I re-read them as an adult. The remarkable central character of Alice is surrounded by a troupe of other performers; all strange, yet somehow familiar. This is a world of cross overs and inversion, of reflections and realities, of near and far, up-side down and of things stood on their heads. There is a point in the story when Alice, falling endlessly down the rabbit hole, wonders if she will plummet right through the earth, emerging in Australia – or as she puts it the Antipathies (meaning the Antipodes).
Taking this as my cue, I have, over many years, speculated on this predicted arrival in Australia. Alice in the Antipodes has been a theme I have explored in numerous works, depicting her in recognisable Australian settings and within more fantastic dreamscapes of possible Antipodean adventures. Possible narratives may be built around Alice, some plausible, most irrational. She is the key to the enigma of the Looking Glass, through which the viewer might travel to an alternative universe or a dream, crowded with scenarios that defy logic. Stephen Bowers, July 2018
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Trio: Cups and Caddy, 2018 wheel thrown, white earthenware, underglaze color (cobalt), clear glaze Cups H9 x D9 cm, Caddy H18 x D9 cm
Stephen Bowers in his studio, work in progress, 2018
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Red Tailed Black Cockatoo Platter (work in progress), 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H9 x D56 cm
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Sulphur Crested Cockatoo Platter (work in progress), 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H9 x D60 cm
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Sulphur Crested Cockatoos and Shards Platter (work in progress), 2018 wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, on-glaze gold lustre, H9 x D59 cm
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STEPHEN BOWERS Stephen Bowers is a visual artist, writer and consultant based in South Australia. Bowers acted as Managing Director of Jam Factory Contemporary Craft and Design, Adelaide from 2004-2010 and has exhibited both nationally and internationally since 1982. BORN
Katoomba, New South Wales, Australia, 1952
SELECTED EXHIBITIONS 2018 Unearthed, The Scottish Gallery, Edinburgh 2018 The Pleasures of Pottery, Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2018 Revive, Remix, Respond, The Frick Pittsburgh, USA 2018 Ferrin Contemporary at the New York Ceramics and Glass Fair 2017 Ferrin Contemporary at the New York Ceramics and Glass Fair 2017 Tondo, Robin Gibson Gallery, Sydney, Australia 2017 Alice in Wonderland, Galleria Officine Saffi Milan Officine presented by the Danish International Ceramic Research Centre, Guldagergaard 2017 Collectors’ Exhibition 2017, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia 2016 Tricking the Eye – Contemporary Trompe l'oeil, Geelong Art Gallery, Australia 2016 Stephen Bowers: Jamais Vu, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia 2016 Sleight of Hand, Ann Linnemann Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark 2016 Re-Reanimate, Repair, Mend and Meld, curated by Paul Scott and Andrew Baseman, Ferrin Contemporary MASS MoCA, North Adams, Massachusetts, USA 2015 Storm in a Teacup, Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery, Australia 2013-2015 Beyond Bravura – a Visions of Australia National touring exhibition and Jam Factory ICON exhibition. Touring to regional galleries in Goolwa, Geelong, Watson, Brisbane, Caboolture, Cairns, Cowra, Wagga Wagga, Manly, Launceston and Seppeltsfield, Australia 2013 Horizon – Landscapes, Ceramics and Print, National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway 2013 New Blue and White, Museum of Fine Art Boston, Massachusetts, USA 2011 The Elements within Sculpture, Lauraine Diggins Fine Art, Melbourne, Australia 2010 Illustrious Wonders, Ann Linnemann Gallery, Copenhagen, Denmark
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SELECTED PUBLIC COLLECTIONS Peabody Essex Museum, Salem, Massachusetts, USA Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, New York, USA National Museum of Art, Architecture and Design, Oslo, Norway Stanthorpe Regional Art Gallery Queensland, Australia Los Angeles County Museum of Art, USA Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia Kerry Stokes Collection Perth, Australia Artbank, Sydney, Australia Museum of International Ceramic Art, Denmark Arulen Arts Centre, Alice Springs Territory Craft Collection, Australia Australian National Gallery, Canberra, Australia Museum and Art Gallery of the North Territory, Darwin, Australia Perc Tucker Regional Gallery, Townsville, Queensland, Australia Collection of Craft Victoria, Australia Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery, Launceston, Tasmania, Australia Art Gallery of Western Australia, Perth
Bathurst Regional Gallery, Australia Shepparton Art Museum, Victoria, Australia City of Box Hill Art Collection, Victoria, Australia Powerhouse Museum, Ultimo, Australia Geelong Art Gallery, Victoria, Australia Gold Coast City Council Collection, Queensland, Australia Art Gallery of Queensland, Australia City of Whitehorse Art Collection, Victoria, Australia University of New South Wales Visual Arts Collection, Australia Janet Holmes à Court Collection, Western Australia Queensland University of Technology – Art Collection, Brisbane, Australia Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery, Hobart, Australia National Museum of History, Taipei, Taiwan Parliament House, Canberra, Australia Manly Art Gallery and Museum, Sydney, Australia Mitchell Library of New South Wales, Sydney, Australia State Library of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia
MONOGRAPH 2013 Stephen Bowers – Beyond Bravura, Damon Moon and John Neylon, Wakefield Press, ISBN 978-1-74305-232-7
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Published by The Scottish Gallery to coincide with the exhibition STEPHEN BOWERS UNEARTHED 5 – 29 September 2018 The Scottish Gallery and Stephen Bowers would like to thank Paul Scott for his introduction and contribution to the catalogue. In making his works, Stephen Bowers has collaborated with a number of artists over the years. In this exhibition he thanks Mark Heidenreich (large thrown forms) and Andrew Stock (figurative works). Stephen Bowers especially thanks Arts South Australia and his partner, Kate Whitelock, for her inspiration and encouragement. Exhibition can be viewed online at www.scottish-gallery.co.uk/stephenbowers ISBN: 978-1-910267-87-5 Designed by Kenneth Gray Photography and studio portraits by Grant Hancock Printed by J Thomson Colour Printers, Glasgow All rights reserved. No part of this catalogue may be reproduced in any form by print, photocopy or by any other means, without the permission of the copyright holders and of the publishers.
Above: White Rabbit Shard Bowl, 2018, wheel-thrown white earthenware, under-glaze colours, clear glaze, H5 x D21 cm Right: Stephen Bowers in his studio, July 2018