Kelie Bowman (born 1979, Dunedin, FL) is an American painter and printmaker who has been exhibiting her work nationally and internationally over the past two decades. She received her BFA from the University of Florida. Bowman has artist books in the permanent collections of MOMA, the New York Public Library, The Metropolitan Museum, RISD, Yale University, Walker Center for the Arts, St. Johns University and other prestigious institutions. Kelie has painted several large-scale murals including murals at the Facebook office in NYC, Basilica Hudson, Eaux Claire Music Festival, Blackston Gallery in NYC, FLA Gallery in Gainesville, Florida and Space Gallery in Portland, Maine. In 2015 she was awarded a Housing Works and Urban Redevelopment Grant to paint a mural at the Minnehaha city park in Maitland, Florida. Bowman is co founder of Cinders Gallery, a non-profit art organization, curating exhibitions and working with artists on projects internationally since 2004. She is also part of the collaboration Light Hits, where she creates installations, music and videos with the artist Jessie Rose Vala.
Artist’s Statement
Having lived and worked on boats in NYC and Florida, I am inspired by the ephemeral qualities of light. I employ various tools of repetition and pattern making, exploring shifting depth and distance in a still medium. With a multiplicity of angles, my work portrays an image of space and time opened by the meditative and calming experience of color, abstraction, depth perception and landscape. My body of work encourages a considered connection to our environment and speaks of shifting landscapes, rising waters, and exploring the vastness of nature.
My practice uses many different approaches to compose artwork including silkscreen, painting, sewing and various dye techniques. When painting, I begin with layering washes of color. Then using tools of sacred geometry, I create a fluid, unique geometric pattern. Exploring the space in-between abstraction and landscape, the result is a multitude of landscapes at once, as if looking through a kaleidoscopic horizon. I am interested in this interruption of picture, stripping a scene of its immediate and specific meaning to see the inherent quality of an image.
Panhandler Magazine 