LARA BOWEN
Still life and sunlight
As well as running the gallery Lara works on her own paintings and creative projects.
The daughter of a horologist and a dancer, Lara is inspired by the tick-tock of time and expressing what it is to be alive. Recording moments has been a compulsion since losing the majority of photos of her childhood in her teens. Since then she has been intrigued by people's life stories, how our memories work, and how colours and light stimulate our experiences and spark our recollections.
A tangle of blooms, a snippet of blue sky, a shard of strong sunlight and the short-lived relationship between a favourite mug and a collection of random blooms. Plants, flowers and organic forms are Lara's go-to language but as a metaphor for the passing of time and as an investigation of personal experiences and memories, being in the moment and attempting to capture joy.
In recent years a more abstract approach has developed in Lara's work. These paintings have a different energy. They are bolder, looser, and happier. They explore pigment and the gossamer shift between tones, the emotional connections we have with words or colours, or the shapes and textures found in harbours, coastlines, or her pebble collection.
" The way I create is not a straight line. I work in series, or projects, depending on mood or what has recently inspired me to paint. Acknowledging these different pockets of inspiration allows me to move between them as they influence each other.'
