Cowan’s work takes inspiration from botanical illustrations and exquisite landscapes.  Romantic scenes of ecstatic naturalism interrupted by flat planes of color and radiating lines echoing symmetry of place combine to suggest otherworldly voids and apparitions.  Referencing artists like Hilma af Klint and Emma Kunz, the geometric layers in Cowan’s work suggest a potential for spirituality and healing that resonates across each field of vision.  Citing Breugel and Bosch, Cowan’s work additionally hints at the base or perverse nature of blocking out or editing concentrated sections of a highly rendered image.  What happens when an illusion is broken or altered?  Where do our eyes move and how do we make sense of these new forms, which either replace or conceal segments of the original image?  We are left with a sense of pleasure in discovery and encouraged exploration.

Cowan’s sensitive brushwork and attention to detail in texture draw us in further as they contribute to objects as rich in surface variation as in composition and imagery.  Shaped canvases expand the fullness of these sensory experiences.

Press release and images via Elizabeth Moore Fine Art.