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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Frank Bowling and Sculpture

Frank Bowling, Mummybelli, 2019.

July 15 – Sept 3, 2022
10 Stockwell St, London SE10 9BD, United Kingdom

Frank Bowling’s life began in British Guiana and took him to Manhattan’s Chelsea Hotel, where he lived alongside Rothko and Warhol in the 1960s. Drawn to Abstract Expressionism and Pop art, he began experimenting with paint, layering his canvases with different washes and playing with impasto, gels, and metallic pigments. He is now renowned. For a time in the 1980s and 90s, Bowling was also a sculptor. As the critic Sam Cornish observes, “like Rodin before him, Bowling seeks vitality, matter brought to life.” When he returned to painting, objects and other materials found their way onto the canvas. This exhibition is the first to look at these paintings through the prism of Bowling’s sculptures. —Elena Clavarino

Photo: Anna Arca/© Frank Bowling