by Michael J. Bowman
February 5th - March 6th, 2005


The artist's debut solo exhibition features large-scale drawings on paper, plus a wall packed with small drawings and doodles on paper.


The surfaces of the drawings are swarming with a Technicolor miasma of biomorphic shapes, invented cartoon characters, and personal symbolism. In one oversized drawing (which at 7 feet tall and 5 feet wide, practically invites the viewer to step inside the pictorial space) a priest-like cartoon character cavorts with what looks like a Bible, amongst a psychedelic storm of cartoon devils, Technicolor doodling and biomorphic shapes. In another tall drawing, a drumming demon fans the flames of a skull bonfire, a fire which is fueled by falling skulls, which fall from a sky where every cloud seems to be from a different cartoon world. Smaller drawings consist of dreamlike vignettes, populated by graphic icons from a parallel dimension. Freakish characters spout enigmatic slogans. Invented alphabets and whimsical patterns adorn bizarre depictions of a demented psychedelia, overrun by beasties and mutants.


Bowman's approach to large-scale drawing is intuitive and uninhibited, inspired by the automatic drawing process of the surrealists; the personal iconography of street art and graffiti; outsider art; psychedelic art; and the art of the insane. The improvisational method results in a visual chaos that draws the viewer in, abandoning the graphic realities of the waking world for one in which perspective, representation and meaning have become fluid.


The artist utilizes a strict drawing protocol, using color sticks, paint sticks, colored pencils, paint pens and other drawing implements. The oversized works lend credibility and permanence to the fleeting, spontaneous, cheap thrills of doodling, while the smaller works, when taken in as an entire wall, create a maelstrom of dreamlike imagery, mental maps and graphic psychosis.