Artist Andrea Bowers at the Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.
Andrea Bowers lives at the intersection of art and activism. She may have been born there. As a young child she was drawn to art before she could walk, and by the time she was in kindergarten she was discussing politics with adults.
“I’ve always been interested in politics. My dad used to have coffee with all of his friends every morning before they’d go to work and most of them were in unions. So I’d listen to union politics, I’d listen to them argue and I’d get in the middle of it. I remember being 5, 6 and 7 years old arguing with them about gender and race. I wouldn’t have called it that in those times. I wouldn’t have been as specific. But it’s always been a part of my personality,” Bowers says.
Bowers attempts to save an old growth forest in Arcadia
Her education nurtured both her artistic practice and her engagement in controversial issues. She received very traditional training at Bowling Green State University where her BFA studies focused on figure drawing and printmaking. From there she went to California Institute of the Arts, which is home to one of the country’s first feminist art programs. Unlike her education at Bowling Green the program at CalArts was largely conceptual.
As part of her MFA course work Bowers took classes in socialism and anarchy, learning in one class how to secede from the government. The training taught her how to question and analyze power structures. “It comes out of a kind of utopian philosophy where you try to analyze what you think is unfair and you try to improve it,” Bowers said.
Initially she rebelled against some of the concepts but then she taught in the arts program at University of California, Irvine, under Catherine Lord. Lord, a well-known artist, writer, and feminist, constructed a multi-cultural program and Bowers found herself immersed in a community that shared many of her interests.
She has been exhibiting her work since the early 1990’s and much of it revolves around themes she was drawn to as a child that became solidified through her academic experience. “I tend to focus on three categories: immigration, feminism, and environmentalism. Not that I stick to that all the time, but I am always investigating the overlap between art and activism,” Bowers says.
Courtesy of the UMFA: Bower’s drawing, “Tim DeChristopher (I Am The Carbon Tax)” (2010)
Through her artistic exploration of activism Bowers came to participate in an attempt to save an old growth forest in Arcadia. She sat in one of the trees as the others were torn down around her. She documented the experience on film and described her efforts to save the tree as “terrifying” because the crew removing the trees tried to intimidate her by tearing down trees that were attached to the one she was in. For participating in the event, she was arrested and spent two days in jail.
“That’s nothing compared to what Tim is doing, but it was very intense,” Bowers is referring to Utah’s own poster child for acts of civil disobedience, Tim DeChristopher. He is now serving a prison sentence for protesting an oil and gas lease auction in Utah. He placed false bids on parcels of land to halt the process.
“I’m always interested in investigating the tradition of the heroic male figure, which is something I love to critique. Being a woman I love to undermine that figure. In art the heroic male figure is always this guy who manipulates, like Michael Heizer, and the guys who do it out here. It’s always manipulating the land, making big things. The tradition of this country is building big things and making big things that are very macho, heroic and powerful. What I loved about Tim is he is this very heroic, young male figure but his heroic move was to leave something untouched. I admire that greatly about him,” Bowers says.
Two pieces of artwork she created with DeChristopher as a subject were acquired by the Utah Museum of Fine Arts (UMFA): a drawing, “Tim DeChristopher (I Am The Carbon Tax)” (2010), graphite on paper, and a video, “The United States v. Tim DeChristopher” (2010), a single channel HD video.
Still from Bower’s video “The United States v. Tim DeChristopher” (2010), courtesy UMFA
For the video she interviewed DeChristopher for two hours. Bowers was looking to tell a side of the story that wasn’t told through the media. “I think one thing I can do is tell a really long, in-depth story that I think isn’t done much in the media these days. The media uses a lot of sound bites.”
In part, her work with DeChristopher gave her an edge on her application to the University of Utah’s 2012 Warnock Artist in Residence program. As part of the residency she is teaching an interdisciplinary special topics course during spring semester. Bowers has turned her studio space at ArtSpace Commons over to her students, which they have named Ground Floor. “They’re turning that into an exhibition space and it’s being offered up free to any social or political organization that needs a place to meet. And any artwork that is exhibited in it has to be socially or politically engaged.”
Bower’s video “The United States v. Tim DeChristopher,” (2010), courtesy UMFA
Bowers with students at Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.
Ground Floor, SLC UT. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.
She also plans to bring in a number of guest speakers that her students can learn from, including Pat Shea, who served as DeChristopher’s lawyer. At the end of the semester Bowers says she hopes her students will walk away with, “independent thinking, critical thought, and an interest in citizenry.”
The students are also looking to use the studio space as a place where people with opposing ideas can meet to have discussions. “I think one of the topics that keeps coming up with the students is they want to try to find a place to hold discussions between these groups where it’s a discussion and not a battle.”
Bowers with students at Ground Floor, SLC. Photo by Tyler Bloomquist.
In some ways this mirrors Bowers attempt to document politically charged issues without engaging in an argument with people who oppose her ideas. “I really feel like my practice is about bearing witness, homage, and memorial,” Bowers says. In addition, she says her work may provide a perspective that allows for understanding from people on either side of an issue. “In my work there is also empathy. Maybe through empathy we can find a meeting ground.”
Dale Thompson has a B.A. in Liberal Arts from The Evergreen State College and an Masters degree in communications from Westminster College. Her writing career includes work for a local theatre, journalism in Park City, and freelance contributions for various nonprofit organizations.
Categories: Artist Profiles | Visual Arts
Where’s the Art? Let’s see the Bowers! This poseur is just another Alinsky-styled activist, gaming the system to siphon our public Art Grant money. She wants to talk;(and not very original talk at that), but where’s the paint? I can’t believe our public ART dollars are spent supporting a garden variety activist, Art Poseur, like her. Art must be unique,and women like her are a dime a dozen, turned out with factory production regularity, from our Academic system.. She has nothing seminal to give us. BORING……….. Why on earth would the UofU waste it’s education dollars on this. Why does the U support an obvious misandrist? Bigotry should be off the public payroll. o body’s born a misandrist. Students go to Art Dept., to learn painting, that’s what we pay the Universities to do, to teach them painting or at least other disciplinary Art skills.. If a visiting professor in the Music Dept got on stage and recited Karl Marx, would we call that Music, or even teaching music? If Ms.Bowers wants to be an activist, she should quite scamming the system. Go wait tables or do maid work, get in touch with workers, and support her own political frivolity . Sorry, I would have liked to have directed this comment on a discussion about Ms. Bowers art, but since she addressed only HER politics and mentions nothing about art, I had nothing to respond to.