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"The word “collaboration” is the best one to use for the way that my paintings are developed. But the collaboration is of an odd sort. The person being painted doesn’t sit down with me and discuss his or her conceptions of the work. It begins by my fixation on a particular person." - Margaret Bowland
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The Process
Documentary of Margaret Bowland and her ModelsMargaret Bowland creates stunning portraits that balance magic with realism. Bowland uses both live models and photographs to create her stunning works. Often her models are not professional models but rather people from her life that she knows and has formed a relationship or curiosity about. She is guided by her models and her fixation with them on a personal and human level. Her models describe her as a warm soul and easy to relax around. She builds her paintings off her idea of the models’ identity, as well as the relationship she has with them. You sense her connection to the person in her work. One of her models stated "...the girl in the painting is Margaret’s interpretation of my identity, and therefore the girl is more Margaret than she is me. That said, the painting feels very real and honest to me."
Ideas, compositions, and aesthetic elements are sometimes planned serendipitously and in the moment, building off sudden inspiration from both the artist and her model. Bowland allows for her models to make choices on details such as clothing and the color of paint they place on their skin. She is interested in their own ownership of their bodies and themselves. -
Margaret BowlandGilt, 2015signed on verso by artistoil on linen51 x 74 in
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Margaret BowlandDust Up, 2015signed verso by artistoil on linen90 x 60 in
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CAM executive director Gab Smith walks through the exhibition “Painting the Roses Red” by painter Margaret Bowland on Wednesday, April 18, 2018, at CAM Raleigh. "Dust Up" (left) and "Tangled Up in Blue" (right, featuring curator Dexter Wimberly and his son as subjects) are part of a series of large-scale paintings by Bowland on exhibit through June 17, 2018. RWILLETT@NEWSOBSERVER.COM
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