DRISCOLL BABCOCK

<-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Front cover = 11 inches (with 1/8 inch bleed on outside edges) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------><--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Back cover = 11 inches (with 1/8 inch bleed on outside edges) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>Spine =0.1034”

MARGARET BOWLANDPOWER

DRISCOLL | BABCOCK

MARGARET BOWLAND POWER

October 29 – December 12, 2015

INTRODUCTIONKathryn Harrison

I have many reasons to love Margaret Bowland’s paintings, and the background in Art History to underscore my respect and admiration for her work. I could articulate, at length, where I might place it among that of other great painters of this and the last century. In other words, I could be academic in my praise. Ultimately the cant I’d summon would boil down to this: Margaret Bowland’s paintings succeed because their overwhelming beauty seduces us, their content holds our intellectual interest, and—having thus securely trapped us—she moves in for the kill with such speed and grace that it takes a while to figure out where the knife went in. Yes, art is meant to seduce, cut, and change you, and I expect these three attributes, in that sequence, from a painting. Most art that succeeds on my terms commands my respect; very few pieces summon my love. The above is my cerebral response. Here’s the emotional one. I own one of Margaret’s paintings, and for ten years, every morning when I join my husband in our living room for coffee, I have watched it while we talk. I could see it with my eyes closed, and yet I watch it hang above my husband’s not-fully-awake countenance. A painting is still, of course; it does not move; it does not change. However, this one commands the room now, as it does at every hour, no matter how many people fill the space. Perhaps, when our beating, breathing flesh withdraws, the figures in the painting I own, BRIDE’S FORTUNE (2004) step out of the frame and continue their enigmatic transaction. As a child, I believed this about a portrait in my dining room. In the style of Fragonard, the posture and gaze of the woman within the gilded oval frame demonstrates obedience, and other feminine conventions of her era. Her corset appears to have been laced murderously tight. Perhaps this is why I wanted her to spring free, in the way of dolls who stand and go about their business when little girls leave the room. BRIDE’S FORTUNE is a dark and brooding work. The knife entered long ago, I never drew it out from between my ribs—assuming I could have. Neither woman in this painting is a happy one: not the upside down bride, barefoot in her white finery, not the upright dwarf in her funereal black, one shoe off, the other on. The topsy-turvy bride looks up toward the heavens, her companion stares me down. Unlike most people who own a painting by Margaret Bowland, I am Margaret’s friend. I know it is she who looks at me out of the dwarf’s eyes, she who refuses to claim female beauty, knocks it over and leaves its head in the gutter. The dropped tarot cards have no answer for the bride. The Hitchcockian house in the background, caught between the kind of towering bricks-and-mortar that suggest a prison, is the kind one escapes, not a home to return to. Dusk on a failed wedding day, the sky losing light, two women—one sitting, one fallen—on the curb, below them the cloacal opening to a sewer, a portal to decay and stench: Crows confirm it, swooping uncomfortably close, one about to plunge its open beak in one of the bride’s pretty feet, another diving for a naked arm. Carrion birds, they predict a different consummation than that of marriage. For death is a kind of union, if with a lover we don’t yet know. So there you have it: my breakfast companion, whom I love without measure. (The canvas—so big! Five foot square, how will it fit into the armload of what I’d save from a fire?) Is Margaret telling me, as I sit across from the husband I love, that marriage is a woman’s gamble, possibly fatal? Is the dwarf, her coolie slippers betraying the status she’d enjoy in the Hapsburg court, asking something new? The dwarfs Velázquez painted are equally infused with grief, if not so confrontational. What has changed in the course of five centuries? Don’t war and cruelty yet abound? What is it I am mourning today, for grief shape-shifts? It claims one thing, then another. Like the crows, it circles and waits, circles and waits. The vulnerable always reveal themselves. Is death so close? And if it is, how is it that its approach is so very beautiful?

Opposite: 15 IN 2015 (detail), page 25

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MARGARET BOWLAND IN CONVERSATION with Tess Sol Schwab, October 2015

TS: The paintings in your show, POWER, are dense with symbolic imagery. Each contains a

maelstrom of references—from the early modern Deccan plateau of India, to post-Renaissance

European paintings, to today’s fashion magazine spreads. How you use these references is

interesting to me because they all combine to make a bigger statement.

MB: What I wanted to say was, children are born into the whirlpool of conflicting ideas all making

up the world in which they live, but they don’t know the truth of any of it.

They know about the Kardashians, but they don’t know our shared history. I am guilty of this

too. Last summer, I saw a show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Sultans of Deccan India,

1500-1700: Opulence and Fantasy, which blew me away. One of the surprises in the show were

portraits of African elites—men who had been brought over as slaves and rose to the highest

ranks of society. Through hard work, intelligence, and perseverance, in this culture power could

be obtained no matter where you came from or what you looked like. The same cannot be said

even centuries later in the United States.

TS: In the painting, DUST UP (p. 15), you hint at this history by placing Indian murals in the

background.

MB: In the painting I put “J”—a young girl I have painted throughout the years—in what I

imagined an affluent Indian home would look like. The wall murals depict Malik Ambar, a

powerful military leader who was originally brought to India as a slave, and a yogini, a female

mystic thought to have occult powers. The yogini has ash on her face and in her hand is a

myna bird, the bird which was a symbol for the supernatural.

On the traditional Indian mosaic floor are Barbie silhouettes. I put Barbie dolls on the floor

because that is the world in which “J” was born. I did think it was interesting that the original

Barbie symbol was a black silhouette on pink. “J” stands in a costume, white wig, and a pose

similar to Velázquez’s LAS MENINAS, which he painted in 1656—the same period as the

murals from Deccan India.

I also put airplanes in the painting, because I found an airplane at a flea market that was made

in India, a little orange one. And to me, airplanes deliver death and deliver freedom. They are

Opposite: DUST UP, 2015 (detail), page 15

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very important symbols in our world. And planes are great for an artist, because like birds, they

create space in a wonderful way.

TS: Planes, or more specifically fighter jets, also appear in 15 IN 2015 (p. 25) and in the fleur-de-lis

pattern of “NAKEDNESS HAS NO COLOR” AND KNOWS KNOW BORDER (p. 13). In other

works like POWER (p. 23) we see the Houses of Parliament are on fire, and in TANGLED UP IN

BLUE (p. 17), hunting arrows dart across the background. There’s a lot of destruction and war

occurring.

MB: I’m fascinated by war. I have always seen war as the ultimate test; you never know who

you are until you face war. I’ve read every war novel imaginable. I am the first child, and I’m a

southerner, the traditional child who goes off to war. One of the things I find despicable about

modern times is that those with the money and power in our country, controlling our world, are

typically not the people fighting the battles and testing themselves.

TS: It definitely seems to be what modern warfare has become and timely with the growing

concerns over how the United States is using drones.

MB: There is a huge disconnect. What I’m trying to do in my paintings is connect because

I think the disconnect happening now is what is creating so much horror. I care most about

war and what it does to innocence. How much adults try and protect their children from the

knowledge of it.

TS: This is also a huge part of your painting, TANGLED UP IN BLUE.

MB: Yes. I have a close friend with whom I am very impressed. My son just had a baby at

34, and he is doing well with a lot of help, but my friend had a baby at 22. Even though my

friend’s marriage broke up before the child was even a year old, he decided to be a father

to this child no matter what, and he did it. I wanted to make a painting about that. The title

comes from a Bob Dylan song about time that doesn’t progress, it’s just an endless circle.

What I’m trying to say in that painting is that this man tangled himself up in the world in order

to give his son the innocence he never had. The blue paint symbolizes the effect time and

experience has on a person—how the world dirties us.

6

In the other part of the painting his son is looking at the symbol of the best we ever did in

America: Abraham Lincoln. Everybody agrees he is a good guy, and the boy is looking at

the five dollar bill right before the blue paint hits it. But his father has protected him; there is

innocence in his face and very great knowledge in the father’s face. In between them is “J”

gazing from within a painting in the other room. “J” never had anybody to protect her. For me,

that is a very important painting because it is absolutely about the state of money, protection,

innocence, and our world. I was very happy with that painting; it said exactly what I wanted it

to say.

TS: Abraham Lincoln appears in that painting on five dollar bills which have been twisted into

roses. These roses come to life in three dimensional form in your first large-scale installation—

a twisted bramble of money, barbed wire, and stuffed crows.

MB: The reason I wanted to do an installation is because art galleries can be very sterile. It’s

not like being in my head. I wanted people to see the paintings as if they were in my head.

You are seeing them through a confusion of barbed wire and beautiful things. I want you to

walk into a forest of confusion; to have to decipher what’s valuable and what’s not. It is the

clearest way for me to prepare you for how I want you to see the paintings.

More obviously, power is usually obtained through money. The entire installation is made up of

real money. The first time you cut money it feels really awful, but then it starts to feel freeing.

On any type of money there is always a face and they are endlessly looking at you while you

pay for a purchase. I am numbing the bills a bit, cutting them and literally reducing their value.

It’s killing me, and I can’t afford it, but I want us to think about money. Many people think is

the most important thing in the world.

Yet money stands for a lie. It used to be backed by gold and now it is backed by nothing.

TS: Money may stand for a lie, but how you transform it is really beautiful.

MB: They are beautiful. That is the seduction of it all. When I teach art I always teach that

the only way you can get a tough message across is by seduction. I am hoping to make very

seductive paintings, in the same way that artists have always done. That will make you love it

7

In the other part of the painting his son is looking at the symbol of the best we ever did in

America: Abraham Lincoln. Everybody agrees he is a good guy, and the boy is looking at

the five dollar bill right before the blue paint hits it. But his father has protected him; there is

innocence in his face and very great knowledge in the father’s face. In between them is “J”

gazing from within a painting in the other room. “J” never had anybody to protect her. For me,

that is a very important painting because it is absolutely about the state of money, protection,

innocence, and our world. I was very happy with that painting; it said exactly what I wanted it

to say.

TS: Abraham Lincoln appears in that painting on five dollar bills which have been twisted into

roses. These roses come to life in three dimensional form in your first large-scale installation—

a twisted bramble of money, barbed wire, and stuffed crows.

MB: The reason I wanted to do an installation is because art galleries can be very sterile. It’s

not like being in my head. I wanted people to see the paintings as if they were in my head.

You are seeing them through a confusion of barbed wire and beautiful things. I want you to

walk into a forest of confusion; to have to decipher what’s valuable and what’s not. It is the

clearest way for me to prepare you for how I want you to see the paintings.

More obviously, power is usually obtained through money. The entire installation is made up of

real money. The first time you cut money it feels really awful, but then it starts to feel freeing.

On any type of money there is always a face and they are endlessly looking at you while you

pay for a purchase. I am numbing the bills a bit, cutting them and literally reducing their value.

It’s killing me, and I can’t afford it, but I want us to think about money. Many people think is

the most important thing in the world.

Yet money stands for a lie. It used to be backed by gold and now it is backed by nothing.

TS: Money may stand for a lie, but how you transform it is really beautiful.

MB: They are beautiful. That is the seduction of it all. When I teach art I always teach that

the only way you can get a tough message across is by seduction. I am hoping to make very

seductive paintings, in the same way that artists have always done. That will make you love it

7

enough to listen to the truth of it. People spouting dark things on a street corner are not going

to be listened to.

TS: You are conveying universal messages, but through very individual and specific portraits of

real people.

MB: I used to get hurt when people referred to my work as “portraiture.” Many years ago,

a professor who came to a party declared there are two categories of all painters: history

painters or portrait painters. And we made this into a parlor game, listing famous artists and

trying to decide if they were portrait or history painters. Of course Rubens is a history painter,

van Dyck is a portrait painter, but then we started to say okay, well, Picasso is a portrait painter,

and Rembrandt is a portrait painter. Who is dealing with the general and who is dealing with

the specific? I know I am a portrait painter. I see the world from an individual point of view. I

don’t see it as grand. I don’t trust it from any grand place; I just trust one person’s view.

TS: A lot of people say all portraits are self-portraits. For you, is there any truth to this?

MB: Completely true. Yes these people stand for me of course, but I’m also depicting every

single person I paint. The boys I’m depicting in GILT (p. 11), I saw while walking through the

park on Memorial Day. I had not left the studio in so long, and I made myself go for a walk.

It was a beautiful day, and I saw these boys, and I thought, “My god, the world is still full of

such bounty, such beautiful things.” So it’s twofold. I see these people as being not tainted

by me and the things that happened to me, but also I fear for them because I know what has

happened to me. So yes, every painting is a self-portrait. But at the same time, especially with

the boys, there is more hope in it. Not just the boys, but with Julie, who is in the painting 15

IN 2015 (p. 25), she’s not going to have my life. One of the reasons I felt good about depicting

her in that painting is that child is 6ft tall, looks like Grace Kelly, is brilliant, she wants to be a

biochemist. I mean she is not going to have my life. But she was born in that world; a world

that still has all that baggage.

Opposite: TANGLED UP IN BLUE, 2015 (detail), page 17

8

enough to listen to the truth of it. People spouting dark things on a street corner are not going

to be listened to.

TS: You are conveying universal messages, but through very individual and specific portraits of

real people.

MB: I used to get hurt when people referred to my work as “portraiture.” Many years ago,

a professor who came to a party declared there are two categories of all painters: history

painters or portrait painters. And we made this into a parlor game, listing famous artists and

trying to decide if they were portrait or history painters. Of course Rubens is a history painter,

van Dyck is a portrait painter, but then we started to say okay, well, Picasso is a portrait painter,

and Rembrandt is a portrait painter. Who is dealing with the general and who is dealing with

the specific? I know I am a portrait painter. I see the world from an individual point of view. I

don’t see it as grand. I don’t trust it from any grand place; I just trust one person’s view.

TS: A lot of people say all portraits are self-portraits. For you, is there any truth to this?

MB: Completely true. Yes these people stand for me of course, but I’m also depicting every

single person I paint. The boys I’m depicting in GILT (p. 11), I saw while walking through the

park on Memorial Day. I had not left the studio in so long, and I made myself go for a walk.

It was a beautiful day, and I saw these boys, and I thought, “My god, the world is still full of

such bounty, such beautiful things.” So it’s twofold. I see these people as being not tainted

by me and the things that happened to me, but also I fear for them because I know what has

happened to me. So yes, every painting is a self-portrait. But at the same time, especially with

the boys, there is more hope in it. Not just the boys, but with Julie, who is in the painting 15

IN 2015 (p. 25), she’s not going to have my life. One of the reasons I felt good about depicting

her in that painting is that child is 6ft tall, looks like Grace Kelly, is brilliant, she wants to be a

biochemist. I mean she is not going to have my life. But she was born in that world; a world

that still has all that baggage.

Opposite: TANGLED UP IN BLUE, 2015 (detail), page 17

8

GILT, 2015 Oil on linen51 x 74 inches

10

“NAKEDNESS HAS NO COLOR” AND KNOWS NO BORDER, 2015Oil on linen82 x 70 inches

12

“NAKEDNESS HAS NO COLOR” AND KNOWS NO BORDER, 2015Oil on linen82 x 70 inches

12

DUST UP, 2015 Oil on linen90 x 60 inches

14

TANGLED UP IN BLUE, 2015 Oil on linen70 x 98 inches

16

ONE CHILD, 2015 Oil on linen86 x 48 inches

18

PAINT, SMOKE, AND VERSACE, 2015 Oil on linen70 x 80 inches

20

POWER, 2014 Oil on linen82 x 74 inches

22

15 IN 2015, 2015Oil on linen60 x 60 inches

24

WATCHER, 2015 Oil on linen40 x 30 inches

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SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

“16 Questions for Portraitist Margaret Bowland.” BLOUIN ARTINFO, March 25, 2013.

Apple, Charity. “Burlington Native Hangs Her Art in Manhattan Studio.” The Times News, March 15, 2011.

“Artist Beats Out Thousands to Notch Prestigious Smithsonian Honor.” NY Daily News, March 2, 2010.

“Artist Margaret Bowland Disturbs the Peace.” Fine Art Connoisseur, February 17, 2013.

Austin, Ben. “New York Armory Week: Snow Doesn’t Stop the Winter Frieze.” Artlyst, March 9, 2013.

Campello, F. Lennox. “Spring Brings Great New Art to the Nation’s Capital.” American Contemporary Art, April/May 2010, pp. 22-23.

Caro. “Margaret Bowland Finds the Meaning of Power in New Portraits.” Hi Fructose, October 20, 2015.

Fairbrother, Trevor, et al. The Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition 2009. Seattle: University of Washington Press and Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, 2009, pp. 29 and 79.

“Features: Art Basel - Miami 2013.” Art Profiler, December 12, 2013.

Frank, Peter. “Blague d’Art.” The Huffington Post, March 9, 2010.

Gregg, Gail. “Nothing Like the Real Thing.” ARTNews, December 2010 (vol. 109, no. 11), p. 69.

Grant, Daniel. “Margaret Bowland’s Paintings Surprise, Intrigue Audiences.” ARTnewsletter, October 11, 2011.

Hess, F. Scott. “5 Artists on the Enduring Qualities of Representational Painting.” The Huffington Post, September 25, 2014.

Horton, Randall. “An Interview with Award-winning Painter, Margaret Bowland, and Tidal Basin Review Editor-in-Chief, Randall Horton.” Tidal Basin Review, Fall/Winter 2010, pp. 39-49.

Hyde, Paul. “‘Freedom’ Exhibition at Greenville Museum Explores Art’s Deeper Meanings: Exhibition Spotlights Museum’s Permanent Holdings.” Greenville News, January 11, 2013.

Hustvedt, Siri. Margaret Bowland: Excerpts from the Great American Songbook. New York: Babcock Galleries and Greenville, SC: Greenville County Museum of Art, 2011.

Kenoyer, Jane. “Margaret Bowland’s Paintings of Little People and Little Girls.” Hi Fructose, September 5, 2012.

Laughy, Lauren. “Love Notes: Five Things We Can’t Live Without.” D Magazine, February 28, 2013.

Macmillan, Leola Dublin. “Black Girls and Beauty: Contextualizing the Work of Margaret Bowland.” Tidal Basin Review, Fall/Winter 2010, pp. 23-32.

Macmillan, Leola Dublin. Margaret Bowland: Disturbing the Peace. New York: Driscoll Babcock Galleries, 2013.

“Margaret Bowland’s Second New York Solo Exhibition of Paintings Opens at Driscoll Babcock.” Art Daily, February 21, 2013.

“Margaret Bowland Wins People’s Choice Award,” Design TAXI, February 1, 2010.

Mellema, Kevin. “Northern Virginia Art Beat.” Falls Church News-Press, March 30, 2010.

O’Sullivan, Michael. “Popping Up an Alternative Reality.” The Washington Post, April 2, 2010.

Oprea, Patricia. “Provocative Paintings and Social Standpoints.” The Charger Bulletin, December 5, 2013.

Salgado, Andrea. “Beauty in the Unconscious: Margaret Bowland.” Graphite Publications, March 16, 2013.

Seed, John. “Contemporary Art’s Body Language.” Hyperallergic, September 30, 2014.

Seed, John. “Hot Off the Easel: November 2015 Edition.” The Huffington Post, October 30, 2015.

Seed, John. “Margaret Bowland: They Say It’s Wonderful.” The Huffington Post, December 1, 2014.

“Talk by Artist Margaret Bowland.” National Portrait Gallery. Online video, May 31, 2010. Archived on www.youtube.com. Accessed October 29, 2015.

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BIOGRAPHY

Margaret Bowland’s spellbinding and psychologically charged work brings viewers face to face with contentious culture while affirming the resilience and triumph of the human spirit. A masterful observer of life’s unpredictable nature, her work conveys universal themes through unusually specific insights. Bowland’s work explores the subtle and nuanced edges between strength and vulnerability, certainty and doubt, faith and disbelief. Bowland’s probing and deeply personal images call into question our societal expectations of gender, race, and beauty.

Margaret Bowland has been exclusively represented by Driscoll Babcock Galleries since 2011. That same year the gallery presented her first New York solo exhibition, Excerpts from the Great American Songbook, which traveled to the Greenville County Museum of Art, SC. In February 2013, Driscoll Babcock presented Bowland’s second solo exhibition, Disturbing the Peace. Bowland’s work has been shown nationwide and internationally in group museum exhibitions and art fairs, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, California; Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami; and Art Fair 21, Cologne, Germany. Additionally, in 2009 she received major recognition as the People’s Choice Award Winner in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Born in Burlington, North Carolina, Bowland studied the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before moving to Brooklyn, NY, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years. She is an adjunct faculty member at the New York Academy of Art.

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BIOGRAPHY

Margaret Bowland’s spellbinding and psychologically charged work brings viewers face to face with contentious culture while affirming the resilience and triumph of the human spirit. A masterful observer of life’s unpredictable nature, her work conveys universal themes through unusually specific insights. Bowland’s work explores the subtle and nuanced edges between strength and vulnerability, certainty and doubt, faith and disbelief. Bowland’s probing and deeply personal images call into question our societal expectations of gender, race, and beauty.

Margaret Bowland has been exclusively represented by Driscoll Babcock Galleries since 2011. That same year the gallery presented her first New York solo exhibition, Excerpts from the Great American Songbook, which traveled to the Greenville County Museum of Art, SC. In February 2013, Driscoll Babcock presented Bowland’s second solo exhibition, Disturbing the Peace. Bowland’s work has been shown nationwide and internationally in group museum exhibitions and art fairs, including the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington, D.C.; Orange County Center for Contemporary Art, California; Frost Art Museum, Florida International University, Miami; and Art Fair 21, Cologne, Germany. Additionally, in 2009 she received major recognition as the People’s Choice Award Winner in the Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C.

Born in Burlington, North Carolina, Bowland studied the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before moving to Brooklyn, NY, where she has lived and worked for over 20 years. She is an adjunct faculty member at the New York Academy of Art.

MARGARET BOWLAND POWER

ISBN: 978-0-9898062-6-8 Artworks © 2014-2015 Margaret Bowland Interview © 2015 Driscoll Babcock Galleries, LLC

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of Driscoll Babcock Galleries.

Margaret Bowland is exclusively represented by Driscoll Babcock Galleries 525 West 25th Street New York, NY 10001 +1 212.767.1852 info@driscollbabcock.com www.driscollbabcock.com

This catalogue is published to accompany the exhibition Margaret Bowland: Power October 29–December 12, 2015

Front cover: “NAKEDNESS HAS NO COLOR” AND KNOWS NO BORDER, 2015 (detail), p. 13; Back cover: POWER, 2014 (detail), p. 23

Design: Driscoll Babcock Galleries Printing: Bedwick & Jones Printing, Inc. All Photography © 2015 Stan Narten, JSP Photography except: p. 31 © 2015 Frankie Turiano p. 32 © 2015 Alexandra Tagami

Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication Data is available Bowland, Margaret — Exhibitions Painting — Exhibitions Driscoll Babcock Galleries (NYC) 1st Edition Includes biographical references

DRISCOLL BABCOCK

<-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Front cover = 11 inches (with 1/8 inch bleed on outside edges) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------><--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Back cover = 11 inches (with 1/8 inch bleed on outside edges) ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------>Spine =0.1034”

MARGARET BOWLANDPOWER

DRISCOLL | BABCOCK