User:Heather Cowie

Heather Cowie. Visual Artist.Born Melbourne Victoria, Australia, 1955.

Originally trained as a geologist following which, was employed as a field geologist in Western Australia, but also working in South Africa. She also completed a postgraduate diploma in computing science at this time.

In the mid 1980s, she began serious study and practice in visual arts, which quickly led to exhibitions of her early mixed-media assemblages, often employing the use of found-objects such a feathers, seeds, rocks, and semi-precious jewels. The themes for these works were often concerned with mythology and/or the arts of ancient civilisations from Egypt, South America and North American Indian cultures.

In 1991, she commenced studies in fine arts for a postgraduate Master of Creative Arts at James Cook University, in North Queensland. Her chosen field of research and practice was the relocation of SOUND TO IMAGE. This incorporated a parallel study of birdsong and music and led to the creation of her Masters Show, in which she presented mixed-media works based on jazz, mediaeval music and the songs of birds.

In 1995, she married the British composer, visual artist and natural scientist, Edward Cowie and moved to England that year.

From 1995 onwards, her work developed into representations and visual 'relocations' based on a great diversity of subjects including further work in birdsong; the architecture of southern France, the ancient human settlements on Dartmoor, Devon; the geometry and colour of French Vineyards and 'plate-drawings' involving the use of her body to imprint on paper sensitised with charcoal and carbon.

She also collaborated (also in the late 1990s), with her composer husband on a series of works directly inspired by Edward Cowie's three concertos for flute and clarinet, 'Elysium' ', and exhibited these works in Ely Cathedral as a visual accompaniment to the premiere of the music.

In the early 21st century, she began to move into still more diverse media, including a remarkable series of sculptureswhich involved the gradual layering of a found object such as a sea-shaped stone with 'skins' of found-objects (shells, stones, pieces of wood, fabrics, memorabilia), photographing each new layer and incorporating each layer into a 'memory-book' of the objects hidden under each successive layer. The final layer consisted of a specially-made 'paste' which was (when dry and hard), polished and stained to give and appearance of a large boulder; seed-pod- even skull-like in bone.

This was a period of even more intense experumentation where gradually, she moved towards more 'flat-space' works, mainly on hand made papers. Throughout this period, she continued to exhibit and sell her works in the United Kingdom.

In particular, 'Heather Cowie'is a 'synthesist; an artist who integrates and trans(forms) from the natural world to an expressive world of new forms and creative action.

In 2012, she began to devote time exclusively to 'painting'; large workd on canvas featuring the interplay(s) between light and colour in watery deeps; birds in huge flocks; and landscapes.

Her work, often in the form of a series-on-a-theme, is vibrant and full of visual and sensual energy.

Her works are in public and private collections throughout the world.

She now divides her time between work in England and SW France.