Lara Bowen
 | | Pomegranite | | |
|  | | White Mug Pink Puffs | | |
|  | | Mother's Day | | |
|  | | Pair | | |
|  | | Corn Field | | |
|  | | The Lookout | | |
|  | | Little Pickings 16 | | |
|  | | Little Pickings 14 | | |
|  | | Little Pickings 8 | | |
|  | | Little Pickings 7 |  SOLD |
|  | | Little Pickings 6 | | |
|  | | Little Pickings 5 | | |
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Lara was born in Brighton and studied art at Hastings College and Oxford Brookes University.
Since graduating she and has worked as writer, designer, illustrator and art teacher. Lara now concentrates on her artistic practice, documenting the plants, flowers and fruit that she has both established and inherited in her garden. Recently she has also turned her attention to formal gardens and allotments, and landscapes passed through on road trips.
Having previously worked in the medium of stained glass Lara aims to bring similar elements to her paintings. Working in oils or acrylics she uses a mixture of brush and palette knife to build layers of colour and texture. Inspiration comes from a variety of places; textiles, floral illustrations, the impressionist painters, ceramic design, household paint colour charts and old masters’ still lifes.
“Light is a vital element in my paintings and I enjoy playing with colour, composition and marks to create something with vibrancy and personality.”
There is a sense of nostalgia in Lara's work. She collects vases on her travels and by cutting the flowers and placing them in the these vessels there begins a limited time in which their relationship can be recorded and therefore preserved. Albeit in impression as opposed to photographically. In a similar way in passing through a landscape you have a fleeting experience of it and Lara enjoys recording her own memory of a place; the pared down elements experienced through emotions - colour, light, temperature - as opposed to the exact details.
Lara now lives in London and paints from her studio in Crystal Palace. She has a bigger garden now, with fruit trees and a vegetable patch and is planning a road trip through the south western counties this summer.
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