Astrid Bowlby

Exhibition in the Portland Museum of Art Biennial, to show first public drawing installation using color. Support for installation, documentation, and travel expenses.

I make drawing installations, sculptures from paper that I've drawn on, and single-sheet drawings. This work has evolved from strong dueling interests in drawing and sculpture, as well as admiration for the flexibility of paper. I make drawings in a variety of forms in order to consider themes like expansion, contraction, density, accrual and scale. Because of this, many of my projects are on-going. This serializing instinct meshes well with both my interests in cartooning and animation and my interest in natural patterns of growth. When I approach a serialized drawing project, I use repeated imagery that appears in different positions and relative sizes. Sometimes I imagine the contents of a comic book being shaken between its covers and dumped onto the floor or expanded to fill an entire room. I like drawings simultaneously literal and symbolic nature, especially when I cut-out what I've drawn. If I need something: flower, canoe, spiral, star, blob, grilled cheese sandwich, patch of grass - I can get it by drawing it. I make a physical analogy to thought that can be reconsidered by being rearranged and added to. I envision the work evolving through these various formats for the foreseeable future.

Support for sculpture installation as part of the Fleisher Challenge Exhibition at the Samuel Fleisher Art Memorial, February 2000.