Man waving (ed. 5/9)

Dean Bowen was born in 1957 in Maryborough (state of Victoria - Australia). After studying Fine Arts at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology where he graduated (1976), he began a career as a painter, engraver and sculptor who has led him to work with European writers also known as Franck Bordas (Paris) Marc Melzassard and Carlos Moreira (urdla Workshop in Lyon), and John Kerr (Grafica Uno, Milan). He has now settled in Melbourne where he lives and works.

Inspired as much by Dubuffet (humor, the apparent naivety of a trait reminiscent of cartoon drawings, description of contemporary society) by Aboriginal tradition (flat areas of natural pigments in the rough texture and warm vision of «satellite» confusion of plans), Dean Bowen evokes figures typical of Australian culture: soldiers of the expeditionary Australian… In doing so, it is for him to confront the Australian landscape, memory and cultural history of his country, and various aspects of modern urbanization, mechanization, pollution. He speaks of «urbanology.

But in counterpoint, the artist also takes pleasure in creating images and situations very poetic, like the carvings and bronzes of children on the face and body which are emerging and the earth and sky Australians. Working memory, it is often self-portraits featuring in Australia of the 1960s as a sign of what might be called a «poetic realism». For if Dean Bowen talks about reality, it is seen and represented by the prism of memory, fantasy and dreams. This poetry-tinged fantasy is still reflected in his «bestiary» wild cats living in the desert or giant bird too fed chips and become obese - both victim but also a symbol of human optimism.

If course work dean bowen uses very different media (lithographs, paintings, sculptures - bronzes - small or monumental - materials recovery), it is evidence of a large unit which is not d inspiration. As the artist insists, in an interview with L. Bellamy (May 15.2004) its «lithographs become paintings, his paintings become sculptures and may eventually become engravings (… ) Each medium tends to become another. And in fact, found on the surface of his bronzes finer prints like lithographs his play on the masses and volumes, finding concerns the sculptor.