SCULPTURE
"My sculptural work has moved through clay and wood, stone and glass but finally settled on cast cotton fibre. I use all my techniques to materialize the image and I like the element of surprise when people reverse their initial impression and realize they are made out of something unexpected. For me paper fibre is a medium that has a feeling of familiarity and is very adaptive to infusion
with pigments and mediums."
- Miles Lowry
TORSOS
The torso is the house of the heart. In archaeology it is also what is left behind. Having endured the onslaught of time the torso becomes an unwitting symbol of the ancient world. An incomplete figure. In contemporary times the fragmented figure appeals both to those who seek antiquity and those who arrive with new eyes. Here the body acts as a mirror. Through the understanding of our own vulnerabilities and desires the sculptures made of fibre and paint become something else, something for the heart and mind. With this work I consider the torso as a potent symbol of our times, revealing its histories yet becoming the sensuous vulnerable housing we are given to embody each day.
Miles Lowry - Victoria 2018
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2018 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, indigo, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2018 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, bronze powder, acrylic and mineral pigments 6" x 12" Signed Date created: 2018 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, bronze powder, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2018 N/A
CRUCIAL FRAGMENT
“My desire is to suggest possible histories even if all that is left are crucial fragments - allusions to the past - also expressive of the here and now."
Miles Lowry
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, pigments, iron life-size Date: 2001 *email for availability "The male figure- historically the embodiment of strength, dominance and power- is fragmented and tattered. War. Disease, environmental concerns and emotional / psychological damage come to mind. Despite these sobering associations, Lowry invests a tender care in his forms. Erosion as a force in human relationships is relentless, yet open to our good will and honest effort.” Bettina Matzkuhn – Artropolis
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, copper leaf, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2011 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2012 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Date: 2003 *email for availability Three life-size fragments of women’s bodies make a trilogy of potent taboos. None are images of beauty perpetuated by contemporary or commercial ideals. The title refers to the obsessive use of makeup - the powdered faces of the 17th century, the white dust of aboriginal ritual and the euphemistic powder rooms of ladies toilets.
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2011 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2000 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2020 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size Signed Date created: 2005 N/A
MYTHS AND BEGINNINGS
"Focused on Celtic history and mythology, these sculptures are cast in cotton fibre and infused with pigments and occasionally elements of the natural world. I have also created objects - cups, shields or stone altars reflecting beliefs inherent in the culture of the Celts. I have worked with body adornment to assert the idea of the body itself as an art object, which expresses itself through its painted and enhanced surface and elaborate dress."
Miles Lowry
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments, hair life-size 2003 N/A "... the young male subject suggests both supplication and benediction: his raised head, with it’s shock of applied hair, is tipped forward like those of the carved saints and martyrs on medieval cathedrals. The immediacy of the subtle detail of the body’s surface is affecting, and sets up a compelling tension with the implicitly threatening, outsider status of the heavily tattooed.” Jan Ellen - Eye Candy
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments life-size 2002 N/A A sensual face, surrounded by sculpted beasts, suggests the tradition of heraldic crests. Poised, ready to open it’s eyes like an oracle, the Herald embodies the journeys of a spiritual antiquity held in memory by the magical association of animals and humans. The painted face appears to be on the threshold of awakening , ready to tell it’s story to those who know how to read its symbolism.
Miles Lowry cast cotton fibre, acrylic and mineral pigments. leather, fur life-size 2003 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments, human hair, silk, cast glass life-size 2004 N/A Named after the ancestress of the ancient Irish, Anu is painted with a labyrinth across her pregnant form. She wears a gold headdress carved with the image of Sheila Na Gig, the fertility symbol of Ireland’s pagan past with a face of inlaid glass. In this work the mystic personage of the spiritualized female and the ceremonial adornments of her otherworldly status are united.
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2000 N/A Paper and pigment - flesh and earth - this figurative fragment borrows from ancient monuments and stone crosses of Scotland. Glowing from within, the inscribed torso seems ready to vanish into the delicate markings drawn on its skin.
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2005 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2001 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2001 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2001 N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments N/A
Miles Lowry cast cotton, acrylic, pigments life-size 2005 N/A
AMPHORA
Miles Lowry and Georgia Angelopoulos have worked collaboratively, sharing the same paper and brush in their 2016 show 'A Broken Hallelujah'. They presented two shows 'Cipher' and 'Marks of Devotion' in Victoria, BC and have exhibited in the group shows 'A Show of Hands' at the Grovewood Gallery in Ashville, North Carolina; ‘Calligraphies in Conversation' at the San Francisco Public Library,; and 'Crossing Boundaries’ at the Ziya Multicultural Art Center, in Oakland, California. Using Lowry’s cast cotton fibre forms, the two artists present the amphora as carriers of poetic fragments inspired by their respective cultures, their own poetry, or words of the great poets. Long and elegant, these amphoras also take on the shape of ballistic shells or ancient tool heads.
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, gold and mineral pigments 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: George Seferis, 1900 - 1971. Fragment from ‘The Song of Love’. The secrets of the sea are forgotten on the beach, the darkness of the deep is forgotten in the foam… Signed Date created: 2017 N/A
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, mineral pigments, lapis lazuli 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: Anacreon, 500 BCEBring water, bring wine, Oh boy, bring us garlands of flowers that I may box with Love Signed Date created: 2017
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, mineral pigments 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: Angelos Sikelianos, 1884 – 1951 Fragment from ‘The First Rain’ “… with a secret turbulence, the quick swallow went breasting across the grass. Suddenly the thunder broke, the wellhead broke, and dancing came the rain.” Signed Date created: 2017 N/A
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, mineral pigments, acrylic gouache 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: Yiannis Ritsos, 1979 Unexplored – he said. I went through underground stoas, I met icy waters and deformed statues. I saw the large storage jars empty along the length of time. It became night. A lot of stars fell on rocky crevasses. Now I return. The street is deserted. Pale dawn. By my front door I find the covered basket with the snake and the pearl. Signed Date created: 2017 N/A
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, mineral pigments, 23 carat red gold 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: Angelos Sikelianos, 1884 – 1951 Fragment from ‘Thalero’. As in a glass hive my soul moved within me, a happy beeswarm that secretly growing larger seeks to send out to the trees its clusters like bunches of grapes. Signed Date created: 2017 N/A
Miles Lowry Georgia Angelopoulos cast cotton fibre, mineral pigments, acrylic gouache 22" x 5" x " 4.5" Text: Sappho, 650 BC. Fragment 16 Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army of foot and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing on the black earth. But I say it is what you love. Signed Date created: 2017 N/A
