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| Since
the mid-fifties Denis Bowen has been obsessed by the advent of space
discovery, which was to pre-occupy his imagination for the last thirty-five
years. Apart from the visual innovation of form and colour, his paintings
in oils are particularly fascinating because they trace and reflect
the history of space exploration and the imagery which we associate
with it. Denis Bowen was at the forefront of British abstract painting in the post-war period. Numerous one-man shows in England and abroad attest to the widespread appreciation of his work; as do the numerous public collections in which he is represented. A major Retrospective Exhibition was held in Huddersfield Art Gallery in 1989. Most recently, in 1993, his work was included in the Barbican Exhibition "The Sixties Art Scene" and the opening show at the Belgrave Gallery's splendid new premises. A Selection
of Post-war British Abstract Art Denis Bowen was among those familiar with early post-war French art and one of the first Tachiste painters in Britain. If Landscape (1954) now appears no more abstract than many St. Ives paintings, we should remember that when it was made the intention of producing a non-referential work was almost sufficient to deter mine its status. By the time Bowen painted the paint had become freer, attaining its own momentum within the arc of the artist's gesture. His working method, making each painting in a single session, underlines the significance of painting as a physical process: to return to a work was to destroy its integrity as an unpremeditated act. Excerpt from Catalogue for Abstract Art in the 1950's by Margaret Garlake Denis Bowen's latest work is remarkable enough for itself, in the strength of its imagery and the freedom and finesse with which the surface is handled, but quite as remarkable is its consonance with his work of the late 1950s, of that critical moment when the romantic, gestural strain in contemporary European painting was coming to terms with the shock of abstract expressionism from New York. The old painterly energy has returned and with it have come a confidence and certainty that are quite new, an awarencss that where before the younger painter took the risk and feared the trouble, now he knows the risk is its reward. The painting is all and these are very beautiful paintings. William Packer, December 1985 |
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