Gary Bowling, a Southwestern Missouri native, returned to his home state in 1981 after a decade of teaching art at Westmar College in LeMars, Iowa. After receiving a fellowship to Yaddo, an artist’s retreat in Saratoga Springs, New York, Gary was encouraged to quit his teaching career and focus his energy on painting. Since then, he has been painting and exhibiting full time. His work has been exhibited across the United States, including shows at the Sheldon Art Museum in Lincoln, Nebraska; Huntington Museum of Art in West Virginia; Mitchell Museum in Mt. Vernon, Illinois; and the Rockford Art Museum. His current studio and residence is in Lamar, Missouri.
"When I see something that I believe I need to explore in a painting, I start with some sketches and a few reference photos that I feel anchor my experience. The process of building the painting is one of dividing the canvas into marks of paint and establishing areas of color that resonate with my memory of the water and the surrounding landscape. Each brushstroke is a response to the accumulated marks and shapes that preceded it, and the success of the whole is judged by how effectively the painting inspires those sensory and spiritual qualities that seemed a bit elusive when I began the painting." |
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