Jackie Bowker
(American)
J. Lewis Bowker was born in 1946 and grew up in Long Beach
California. She considers herself to be a self-taught artist, although
she did attend formal art school for a short period. Art has been an
important part of her life as long as she can remember, and at the age
of sixteen she was already winning art contests and even had one of her
works included in a collection of Los Angeles County Museums.Painting
scenes of smoke trees and verbena contrasting against desert mountains,
yellow blooms of a brittle bush, spindly ocotillos against a blue sky,
Bowker loves most to emphasize depth in her works. "I want you to feel
that you can move through the painting. At first you study the
foreground, the wildflowers or the cacti or whatever, then you move
beyond to the middle ground of hills and then to the mountains in the
background. And, if I have done my job well, in your mind you can cross
through a pass in the mountains to the other side. I want to paint
limitless paintings".Although she dedicates most of her time to painting
desert compositions, Bowker also produces portraits and scenes for
Yosemite, and the Oregon coast and other settings. She loves to visit
with people while painting, and states that "Art has always been
integrated into the rest of my life. I have five children, and when they
were small they were always around while I painted. I learned to
concentrate in the midst of interruptions."
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