Ada Bowman

Untitled (a liminal place), 2019

embroidery

Untitled, 2019

Plaster, chicken wire, wax, fabric

A soft reach, 2019

fabric, rice

Tuck me in, 2018

rice, fabric, metal

Untitled (It is good to have something go missing for awhile, or maybe always), 2019

used fabric, metal, wax, thread

Artist Statement

Through reminders of the physical body and places of residence, my work stands in for things that have been lost, feelings of struggle, the vulnerability of change, making invisible connections to pastness, and forgetting. I aim for the awareness of this vulnerability to be nurtured especially in its relationship to transience and access, undoing privacy, or withholding exposure. Methods of mending, staining, and stuffing produce conditions of discomfort and echo corporeality. Combining materials such as wax, fabric, ceramic, and metal the subjects represent affected states of fragility, vacancy, and balance. Through sculpture and craft, I create subjects that serve as dissected conflict, the collision of pain and joy, the disappointment of love, the trauma of loss. I question the home as a fake promise of stability, using the shape of the house to outline my experience as an event that exists in pastness and reflection, a location that is fragmentary post-adolescence. Sometimes these sculptures can appear contained, static and isolated or metamorphic and fugitive. This attempt to depict disparate memory with physical possessions is materialized through merging bodily appearance and familiar objects, making nuanced experience tangible.