Anxiety (From the series Eyes Swollen Shut) - Limited Edition of 20 Photograph

Artist’s Statement: Eyes Swollen Shut This series explores the residual nature of physical and emotional trauma. The diptychs represent flashes in the mind’s eye and suggest an untold drama of violation, loss, grief, pain, and shame. The blurry color-saturated images of flowers symbolize what cannot be understood because the experience is too close. It expresses a sense of yearning to see what is beautiful but unattainable or no longer exists. It references the experience of closing one’s eyes and only seeing shapes and colors but nothing is concrete and three-dimensional. The images of hands are photographs of details from paintings displayed in museums or out of focus flowers. These are images focused on searching and “looking” for truth and healing amidst profound difficulty and dealing with what is “out of sight.” These details taken out of context suggest clues to a more complex narrative drama and beg the question, “what happened?” Each image conveys the fallibility of memory and the incompleteness or impossibility of total recall. The gestures represented convey the continuum of responses to trauma and their complexities such as prayer, anger, depression, fear, guilt, or shame. While each photograph was taken in different places and times, combined and juxtaposed as diptychs they are stand-ins for the simultaneous experience body and mind while dealing with the residue of trauma. The experience of trauma is ever-present but more accurately a haunting. It isn’t tangible; it is a ghost. Biography K. Johnson Bowles has exhibited in more than 80 solo and group exhibitions nationally. Feature articles, essays, and reviews of her work have appeared in 40 publications around the country including SPOT (Houston Center for Photography), Sculpture, Fiberarts, and the Houston Post. She is the recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Individual Fellowship and a Houston Center for Photography Fellowship. Recently, she served as an artist in residence at the Visual Studies Workshop in Rochester, NY. She received her MFA in photography and painting from Ohio University and BFA in painting from Boston University.

Photography:Digital on Paper

Artist Produced Limited Edition of:20

Size:20 W x 16 H x 0.1 D in

Delivery Time:Typically 5-7 business days for domestic shipments, 10-14 business days for international shipments.