Dogsheadtotem, 2009

Sir Frank Bowling RA (b. 1934)

RA Collection: Art

This painting was created as part of the project which led to 'Journeyings: Recent works on paper by Frank Bowling', a display in the Royal Academy's Tennant Gallery held to coincide with the launch of Mel Gooding's monograph Frank Bowling (May - October 2011). These works all relate to the theme of Bowling's reflections on his travels, actual and aesthetic, between his birthplace of Guyana (previously British Guiana) and his homes and studios in London and New York.

Like the much larger paintings on canvas for which Bowling is known, these works in acrylic paint and gel on heavy paper have a powerful physical presence created by their vibrant colours and tactile surfaces. Originating in Bowling's need to find a new way to paint while recovering from illness, the works have a gestural quality that seems magnified by their smaller scale. The images reference Bowling's interests in both the tradition of English landscape painting and the legacy of American Abstract Expressionism. The works are abstract, yet the viewer is led to figurative or representational associations by the artist's preoccupation with space and light and the allusive titles that he gives the works.