Tony Bowen

Tony Bowen is a UK based fine artist working mainly with photography. Since postgraduate study, he has divided his time between personal practice and art and design education (teaching and curriculum leadership) in Manchester, where he was born and in Sussex, where he now lives. With a background and first degree in painting, an interest in making photographs has developed over time: initially supporting work with other media and subsequently as outcomes in their own right.

Alongside formal and atmospheric considerations, his work is largely inspired by the power of the trace, the fragment and the unresolved to provoke the imagination in unexpected ways. A preoccupation with interpreting and documenting the found mark has spanned a number of years. More recent work focuses largely on interrogating and exploring ordinary and often overlooked surfaces present in natural, domestic and urban environments. The residues of human and other activity are areas of particular interest, suggesting all kinds of narratives and stimulating broad lines of investigation. Whether metaphorical or literal, these enquiries open up new, personal ways of reading the environment, and of deciphering and engaging with landscape.

His work has been sh...

Manchester Polytechnic (foundation 1980)
Lancaster School of Art (Preston Polytechnic; BA Hons Fine Art Painting 1983)
Manchester Polytechnic (PGCE Art and Design 1985)

Director of Creative and Digital Studies at Sussex Downs College (UK).
Teacher of Art and Design (painting, photography, foundation studies in art and design) since 1986

To Be Forgotten: The Stable Gallery, West Meon, Hampshire, UK. (cur. Evelyn Jacobs - upcoming: 18-27 June 2021).

Inner-City [Out of Place]: Virtual show (cur. Lois Emma Harkin, Norwich University of the Arts, UK. - upcoming: April 2021).
Inhabiting (English Riviera Photography Showcase): Artizan Collective, Torquay, UK. (cur. Jacob Brandon - upcoming: 19 April -16 May 2021).

Open Fragment: Pragmata Collective, London, UK. (cur. Adele Lazzeri & Toby Kidd - online - upcoming: 3-17 April 2021).
Earth Patterns: (cur. Shafiga Agheyeva, Norwich University of the Arts, Norwich, UK. - online - March 2021).

White: Blank Wall Photographic Space, Athens, Greece. (cur. Maria Toutoudaki - 19 February to 3 March 2021 - temporarily postponed).
Simulacrum: Werkstadt, Berlin, Germany. (cur. Jule Böttner & Jason Benedict: "Intersection" - December 2020 / January 2021).*
Van·ish·ing: THIS__ Gallery, Vancouver, BC, Canada. (cur. Barbara Bryn Klare & Shannon Pawliw - December 2020 / January 2021).
The Postcard Project: A.R.T. Publications, London, UK. (cur. Polly Bates - December 2020).
Location: Fragmented Magazine, New York, NY, USA. (ed. Catalina Giraldo & Julie Hikari Mebane. Issue #1 - December 2020).
Detachment: Artists Respondi...