Professor Siân Bowen

Ongoing interests are in the boundaries between damage and the creative impulse, and in light and the drawn surface. Other key interests include the potential that drawing has to interrogate materiality and states of flux and the multi-sensory nature of museum heritage. She has become increasingly interested in how her works might engage with concerns regarding the vulnerability and sustainability of plant life and of the natural world.

As Resident Artist in Drawing at the V&A, London, 2006-8, she developed a body of site-specific works on paper relating drawing to the museum context, exhibition display and the V&A’s Asian and Word & Image Collections. From 2010-12, she worked with the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, as Guest Artist in Drawing to examine the relationship between materiality and the ephemeral; prints from the Nova Zembla collection, conserved after having been discovered frozen in the Arctic for three hundred years, provided the framework for a new body of drawings and artist books that formed a solo exhibition at the Rijksmuseum in 2012. The project also included a series of video works filmed whilst travelling through the icepack of the Russian Arctic. Additionally, recent video works have challenged experiential understanding of time and space, whilst current works explore ideas connected to the collection, preservation and storage of ephemeral objects including rare plant specimens.

She has recently completed a series of twenty-five unique artist’s books in response to rare plants in Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh Herbaria (RBGE) and protected forest and coastal areas of Southern India. These works, presented by Galerie DRUCK und BUCH, Vienna, led directly on from her Leverhulme Research Fellowship, Sensing & Presencing Rare Plants through Contemporary Drawing Practice, (2017-21) – during which time she collaborated closely with subject specialists at RBGE and was Guest Artist-in-Residence at Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, India, set in a remote region of moist deciduous rainforest.

She is currently carrying out a three-year project as Visiting Researcher and Artist-in-Residence at the Economic Botany Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (2022-25). Collaborating with leading ethnobotanist, Professor Mark Nesbitt, and focusing on historical Japanese collections of lacquer and paper objects, the residency aims to stimulate interdisciplinary reflection on, and understanding of, sustainable plant life and its role in highly complex Japanese traditional art and craft skills. A further artist’s residency is planned to be carried out in Kyoto, Japan (2023). Siân Bowen participates in the on-going international project, EXTRACTION: Art on the Edge of the Abyss, a collective cultural response to damage to the natural world. She maintains studios in Northumberland and the Western Isles.

SELECTED SOLO EXHIBITIONS

• 2020 After Hortus Malabaricus: Sensing & Presencing Rare Plants, Inverleith House, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh
• 2016 Descriptions True & Perfect, Jilin University of Arts, Changchun, China
• 2012-13 Siân Bowen and Nova Zembla: Suspending the Ephemeral: Fruehsorge Contemporary Drawing, Berlin; Trinity Contemporary, London
• 2012 Capturing the Ephemeral: Siân Bowen and Nova Zembla, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• 2008 Of Dust, Japan House, Daiwa Foundation, London
• 2007 Drawing, Context and the Collection, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• 2006 Shift, North Gallery, Kyoto Arts Centre, Japan.
• Habit, A1 Art Space, Nagoya, Japan
• 2005 Siân Bowen – New Work, The Drawing Gallery, London
• 2004 Siân Bowen, Galerie am Markt, Kunstverein, Schwâbisch Hall, Germany
• Habit, METAL, London
• 2002-3 Ream, Aspex Gallery, Portsmouth; Mead Gallery, Coventry; and Angel Row, Nottingham
• 2000 Seal, The New Gallery, Grizedale, Cumbria
• Passage, Hart Gallery, London
• Siân Bowen: New Works, Villa Romana, Florence, Italy

SELECTED GROUP EXHIBITIONS

• 2020-21 Trinity Buoy Wharf Drawing Prize, Drawing Projects. Trowbridge; Cooper Gallery, Dundee: Trinity Buoy Wharf, London; The Gallery at AUB, Bournemouth.
• 2019 Fire: Flashes to Ashes in British Art, RWA, Bristol
• 2018 Folding Islands, Drawing Boundaries, British Pavilion, Venice Biennale for Architecture
• I am What I am, The Gallery, AUB, Bournemouth
• 2017 25 Jahre: Werkstatt für Papier, Projecktraum Kunstquartioer Bethanien, Berlin
• Black Mirror, The Gallery, AUB, Bournemouth
• Bucherlese, Galerie DRUCK & BUCH, Vienna
• 25 Jahre : Werkstatt für Papier, Projecktraum Kunstquartioer Bethanien, Berlin
• 2015 Paper, Table, Wall and After 2, National Taiwan University of Art, Taipei
• 2014 Angels, Equator Arts, Singapore
• Paper, Table, Wall and After 1, Gallery North, Newcastle upon Tyne
• 2013-14 British Drawings: 1600 to the Present Day, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• 2013 Drawology, Bonington Gallery, Nottingham; Lanchester Gallery, Coventry
• 2012 Unknown Fields: Recent British Drawings, Young Gallery, Salisbury
• 2011 Dust on the Mirror 2, Institute for Contemporary Art, Lasalle University, Singapore
• Unfinished Business, Wallington Hall, Northumberland
• 2010 Touchstones, Salisbury Museum and Stonehenge World Heritage Site
• Dust on the Mirror 1, Djanogly Art Gallery, Nottingham
• 2009 40 Artists - 40 Drawings, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• In Between the Lines - Recent British Drawings, Trinity Fine Art, London
• Recent British Drawings, Trinity Arts, New York
• Northern Print Biennale, Hatton Gallery, Newcastle
• 2008 Refractions/Shadows – A Critics Choice: Mel Gooding, Lemon Street Gallery, Truro
• 2006-7 Drawing Breath, 10 Years of the Jerwood Drawing Prize, Wimbledon College of Art & tour
• Making a Mark, Northern Print Studio Gallery, Newcastle
• 2006 Drawing Inspiration, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, Kendal
• 2005 Mostyn 15, Oriel Mostyn, Llandudno
• 2004 Look to This Day, Castlefield Gallery, Manchester
• 2003 Drawing the Process, Knights Park Gallery, Kingston University & tour
• Jerwood Drawing Prize, Jerwood Space London & tour
• 2002 Jerwood Drawing Prize, School of Fine Art, Cheltenham & tour
• 2001 Jerwood Drawing Prize, School of Fine Art, Cheltenham & tour
• RESIDENCIES
• 2022-25 Artist-in-Residence, Economic Botany Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew
• 2019 Gurukula Botanical Sanctuary, India
• 2010-12 Guest Artist in Drawing, The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• 2009 Artists + Archaeology, Salisbury Museum & Stonehenge World Heritage Site
• 2006-8 Resident Artist in Drawing, The Victoria and Albert Museum, London
• 2006 Guest Artist, Kyoto Art Centre, Japan
• 2003-4 Time & Space Residency, METAL, London
• 2003 Resident Artist, Costume & Textiles Museum, Nottingham
• 2000 Invited Artist, Villa Romana, Florence
• 1993 Grizedale Forest Residency
• 1993 Resident Artist, Burford House & Gardens, Worcestershire

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Sarah Casey and Gerry Davies,‘Drawing Investigations: Graphic Relationships with Science, Culture and the Environment’, Bloomsbury. 2020
• Gemma Brace; Rachel Nee & Christiana Payne, 'Fire: Flashes to Ashes in British Art, 1692-2019', Sansom & Company, 2019
• Ian Heywood, ‘Sensory Arts and Design’, Bloomsbury Academic, 2017
• Marsha Meskimmon & Phil Sawdon, ‘Drawing Difference: Connections Between Gender and Drawing', Sew Editions, 2016
• Susan Owens, The Art of Drawing; British Masters & Methods Since 1800', V&A Publications, 2013
• Jan Philipp Fruehsorge,’The Art of Recollection and Material Memory’, catalogue essay, 2012
• Joel Fisher, ’The Suddeness of Place; Siân Bowen and Nova Zembla’, catalogue essay, 2012
• Paul Coldwell, Contemporary Printmaking, Black Dog Publishing, 2010
• Tony Godfrey, ‘Dust on the Mirror’, catalogue essay (interview), 2010
• Jeremy Cooper, ‘In Between the Lines’, catalogue essay, 2009
• Mel Gooding, ‘Refractions/Shadows’, catalogue essay, 2008
• Tim Travis, ‘Of Dust’, catalogue essay, 2008
• Richard Cork, ‘The Stubborn Art’, Financial Times, May 2007
• Richard Cork, ‘Shift & Gaze’, catalogue essay, 2007
• Tony Godfrey, ‘To See is to Touch, to Touch is to See’, catalogue essay, 2007
• Deanna Petherbridge, Psycho Dynamics of Obsessive Drawing, Cambridge Scholars Press, 2007
• Gill Saunders, ‘Reflections on Drawing’, catalogue essay, 2007
• Pauline Webber, ‘Paper of a Very Special Kind’, catalogue essay, 2007
• David Buckman, Artists in Britain Since 1945, 2006
• Deanna Petherbridge, ‘Drawing Inspiration’, Abbot Hall Art Gallery, catalogue essay, 2006
• John Cornall, ‘Ream’, Arts Review, March 2003
• Robert Clark, ‘Ream’, The Guardian’, November 2002
• Sacha Craddock, ‘The Ream Series’, catalogue essay, 2002
• Francis McKee, ‘Making Time’, catalogue essay, 2002
• Richard Cork, ‘Hung Drawn and Courted’, The Times, Sept. 2001
• Richard Cork, ‘Drawing a Line’ Jerwood Drawing Prize catalogue essay, 2001
• Tony Godfrey, ‘It Carries Its Own Time With It’, catalogue essay, 2000

COLLECTIONS

• British Council, India
• British Museum, London
• European Patent Office, Munich
• Deutsche Nationalbibliothek, Artist Book Collection, Leipzig
• Heian Art, Kyoto, Japan
• Salisbury and Wiltshire Museum
• Lowick House Print Collection
• Metzingen Town Council, Germany
• National Library of the Netherlands, The Hague: Artists Book Collection
• New York City Library: Artists Book Collection
• Northern Print Studio
• University of Nottingham
• Paintings in Hospitals Scotland
• Stanford University Libraries, California: Special Collections
• The Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
• Teikyo University, Durham
• The Victoria and Albert Museum

Siân Bowen has supervised eight PhD students to completion and is currently principal supervisor for two drawing-centred PhD projects at AUB: Justine Moss (Extracting the Blur: The Discarded Garment in Motion in 1950s and 60s Narrative Film through the Lens of Drawing) and Juliette Losq (Layered Visions in the Teleorama: Constructing Sites of Ruination through Contemporary Drawing Practice).