Paige Bowen

There is something about landscapes shifting that is reliable. Having moved internationally often as a child, I felt unsettled by the inconsistency in my surroundings. To find connections to lost people and places, and relate to the environment I am in now, I create. This piece is a meditation on the wild fields that I drive by on my way from Richmond Hill to Grey County, with reference from South African Fynbos - a landscape that felt the most like home. As I draw with the ink, I feel as though I am meditating. The methodical and dedicated motions let me sit with a place for longer, appreciating its intricacies in a new way. The embroidery in the sky is for comfort. No matter where I lived, the sky was always above me. In that same way so were textiles. All of the women in my extended family have passion for textile art, proven by my mother whose walls are covered with embroidered, punch-needled, quilted, and crossstitched art. By working with textiles in my art practice I am able to connect with relatives that have passed on or I am a hemisphere away from. In this piece I bring together a connection with the past, with land and people left behind, and with the present - finding peace in their congurency.