Surplus & System: Studies in Rebuilt Form

Often distinguished by strong colors and geometrical shapes, the resulting works of art are a bold manifestation of a laborious process that may seem open-ended at times but ultimately finds a clear sense of direction and resolution. These novel “painting-objects” stand as a strong testimony to the tension between chaos and order, rejection and appreciation, failure and reinvention that underpins Dowler’s technique. Arising from what could have been considered undesirable materials, “leftovers of consumer and art-world culture—specifically discarded canvases, orphaned artworks, and salvaged materials” Bobby Dowler rethinks the very economy of austerity. His creative process is fueled by an aversion for waste and an absolute need to save and structure, conserve and build.

In this spirit, the chaotic affair of amassing is, rather paradoxically, precipitated into a quasi-scientific system of comprehension through which Dowler processes waste and production. Through order and geometry, his artistic practice seems to flirt with historical references such as Modernist Abstraction and Industrial Aesthetics, while questioning a range of contemporary issues around the uniformisation of taste, consumerism, authenticity, rejects and creation.

His hybrid “painting-objects” are in this sense constructed and deconstructed, assembled and disassembled over and over again in his studio, and eventually in the exhibition space before being deployed and installed. Ultimately, they compose an ever finished series of studies and explorations around multiple forms of art, but also a tangible corpus investigating the ontology of objects via the objectification of space through time. Here, Dowler seems to distinguish time from chronology.

Through a somewhat experimental approach of constant metamorphosis, Bobby Dowler reappropriates the space of Vie Projects, with vivid color, texture and shapes. Seemingly following the precepts of Lavoisier “nothing is created, nothing is lost, everything changes” or perhaps just epitomising the famous proverb “one man's trash is another man's treasure”, Surplus & System: Studies in Rebuilt Form, is a compelling reflection on contemporary value systems, and the capacity of reinvention. Archeologist, through his excavation of discarded material, alchemist in their transformation, sculptor, painter and architect in their assembling, Dowler first and foremost invites the audience to reconsider the obsolete, and embrace it with dynamism and creative sight.