The work for this show reflects the daily “textures” I have experienced while in Rome. Incredible art, churches and cultural icons mix with daily decay and rebuilding; distinct sounds of multiple dialects and languages mingle into a chorus both dissonant and harmonious. The ancient is juxtaposed against the new in a manner that at once seems jarring and congruent. In this show, I attempt to translate my experience through textural surfaces and layers of color, using my own interpretation of putti-like figures as a narrative vehicle.

 

BIO

Jim Bowling is a sculptor working in clay with mixed media; he is also a Professor of Art at Otterbein University’s Department of Art and Art History teaching in the areas of ceramics and sculpture.  Jim is a graduate of The Ohio State University and received his MFA in ceramics from Kent State University.  He is a member of the National Council on Education in Ceramic Arts and serves as a trustee for the Ohio Designer Craftsman/Ohio Craft Museum.  As a contemporary artist working in clay and mixed media, he is rooted in the material and craftsmanship of ceramics but focuses on conceptual approaches to explore the connection between surface and form in figure-based narrative works.  His work exhibits locally, regionally and nationally.

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