In the exhibition Fallet (The Fall), Vanna Bowles has explored a new form of expression, through drawings and sculptures in paper, papier mache, charcoal, pencil and white and black paint. Her usually carefully executed and detailed work of birds, insects, body parts and nature, here meet an expressive and abstract expression.

In the process of working out this new form of expression, the hands and the body have been allowed to rule, and she has allowed a physical and experiential knowledge to manifest itself through doing rather than thinking.

”Never regret thy fall, O Icarus of the fearless flight, For the greatest tragedy of them all, is never to feel the burning light.” – Oscar Wilde

The exhibition can be seen as a meeting point between a form of subconscious thinking, where fragments and parts of larger wholes can be put together to form new images and stories, and a bodily examination of experienced emotions, where the materials, that can be likened to entrails, bodies parts, plants and other living things, are allowed to speak for themselves.

About Vanna Bowles

Vanna Bowles (b. 1974 in Gothenburg) is educated at the Statens Kunstakademi in Oslo and the Universität der Künste in Berlin, and since 2001 has had an active exhibition activity in Scandinavia and internationally. Bowles explores drawing in combination with sculpture, objects and performance and stylistically finds herself in a surrealist and photorealistic idiom. Bowles often uses optical effects and reliefs that destabilize the dividing line between the picture surface and the room, and she has made a name for herself by combining drawing with sculpture in a peculiar way.

Among others, Vanna Bowles has had solo exhibitions at Kunstnerforbundet in Oslo, Lars Bohman Gallery in Stockholm and Galleri Thomassen in Gothenburg. She has participated in Spår at the Malmö Kunstmuseum, Ben ik een dier? At Museum De Dominjen, Nederland, and FEMALE PIONEERS – new voices at Lillehammer Kunstmuseum. Vanna Bowles is purchased by, among others, Lillehammer Art Museum, Malmö Art Museum and the Norwegian Arts Council. She has recently completed several public sculptures, i.a. the work Orädd Resa on Lindholmen in Gothenburg’s harbour. In 2016, Bowles received a 10-year work grant from the Norwegian Cultural Council.

The exhibition is produced with funds from Norsk Kulturråd.