Coming Soon: Robert Bowen’s ‘Blasphemous Nature’

The paintings of San Francisco based artist Robert Bowen act as his Darwinian journal of imagined artifacts. Bowen is an explorer of his own surreal natural history, the animals he creates are enhanced by industry — oil and steel, gasoline and turbine.

A steady practitioner of the surreal and bizarre, Bowen’s recent set of work is part of his ‘Blasphemous Nature’ show that is opening at Portland’s Upper Playground on August 7th.

From Robert Bowen & Upper Playground —

‘BLASPHEMOUS NATURE’ is a collection of new paintings chronicling a bizarre place where the line between Mother Nature and the mechanical world has been blurred and broken. The show will be on display at Portland’s Upper Playground Gallery, opening on August 7th from 6PM – 9PM.

“With this new body of work I am continuing to focus on my fascination with animal / machinery hybrids. There are so many unanswered questions I have about them. Is this a not so distant future reality? A terrible road we should never go down? How do I make the Killer Whale a more efficient killer? Can the marlin and shark be even faster hunters, more dangerous to their only predators, man? If the bees continue to disappear, should we design a replacement to pick up where they left off? Or do we accept our fate and stop toying with Mother Nature since that is what got us into trouble in the first place?

I’m continuing to play mad scientist in a lab that should never really exist. Oh, and there’s a few fire breathing cats in there, because…why not.”