Many Worlds
BOBBY DOWLER
We are born into this world and are here, accumulating objects and experiences. Periodically we rise and fall. Eventually we will die. And to varying degrees all our lives are unstable and constantly changing. It is these elementals that characterise the works of art Bobby Dowler has made over the past three years.
Beginning with basic experiments in formal construction and assemblage he made three-dimensional sculptures composed of two or three separate parts that were not soldered or welded together but balanced. The best example of these early installations is The Precarious Nature of It (2006), where a scaffold, chair and table, all stand on one of a possible two - in the case of the scaffold - or four legs: a single rope looped through each object links them together, simultaneously maintaining the balance between them. This is a simple structure but its resulting delicate and moving effect is extremely difficult to achieve - it is the careful balancing act that qualifies it as sculpture.
Having exhausted this initial period of study he started to make groups of work with less purely formal motives. This resulted in the elaborate four-part balanced construction Hellscape, and a second group of three larger sculptures: Inter re inter se (legs), The Hermeneutics of Suspicion and Holes in my dead (upper body & head) (all 2007). The poetic intention of these deeply intimate and human works is clearly emphasised by the suitability of the materials chosen to the meaning of each piece. Hellscape addresses the artists experience of the natural landscape of town and country: a broken glass case stands on one corner, its contents of moss and soil spilled out onto its plinth; a narrow metal rod with a dinner plate resting on top is fitted into the bars of an upturned plant stand; a standing lamp is positioned on one small section of its round base, the remaining section held up with a small nail and the top of the stand balanced by an old string fruit bag weighted with debris; a bent television aerial is placed on a metal bracket stood upright on the floor. The second group of work is concerned with the physiology and psychology of the human figure: a tangle of white piping is propped in a corner with an open book balanced on its central intersection (legs); a free-standing copper pipe with a green ball punched all over with small holes (head), and two rectangular pieces of steel, one large and thick, one small and slim, stand apart but parallel with a steel pipe slightly bent at one end resting across them (torso).
The essential meanings of sculpture remain fundamental. The most powerful pieces are those which, regardless of scale and material, are able to communicate something extraordinary and unique from inside them. This is the true spirit of sculpture, so often neglected for detail, or for ways and means.
In the case of this artist, the very best recent sculptures are those that combine qualities of strength and weakness, and most particularly when he uses materials with these particular properties. Drifting to Annihilation in the Tropic of Calm 1 & 2 (2007), are a pair of works that use very fine string suspended from a great height to hold heavy steel rods. The result of this piece was two compelling marks made in time and across space. However, despite the strength of these marks, relating to the underlying principles of its materials, the means by which the marks were achieved (the wire attachment and balancing act) ensured that we were also aware of the object’s overwhelming fragility in time and space. It is at this moment that we find evidence of the sculpture’s life greater than the simple sum of its material parts: by understanding and combining materials in a surprising way the psychological aspect of the resulting combination, in this case an almost terrifying fragility, reveals itself and cannot be ignored.
Bobby Dowler has produced many drawings, predominantly in lead pencil applied with varying pressures – dark for straight lines and complete shapes (squares, circles, triangles), light and spidery for tiny gestures and incomplete shapes, on single sheets of paper of different sizes, on scraps torn from notebooks or in small sketchbooks.
The simpler drawings, where one or two lines or single shapes appear on each sheet, explore the practice of making marks of different weights whereas the more complex drawings show complete systems of linked objects or describe groups of inexplicable signs and symbols. Whether representing particular thoughts in isolation or specific sculptures or installations the practice of drawing is essential and always feeds a sculptor’s work.
Art is a mysterious language and its meaning is never entirely clear. Sculpture is an exacting and difficult medium and needs imagination and strong nerves, not to mention many years of preparation and study. What we are lucky enough to witness in this exhibition is a beginning, an introduction to this young artist’s view of the exciting, challenging and ultimately tragic world that we all share.
