Original artwork description:

ARTIST’S STATEMENT: VERONICA’S CLOTHS

While this body of work is not about a particular religious belief or cannon, the series title takes its name from the St. Veronica legend. It is said Veronica wiped Christ’s face with her veil during his journey carrying the cross. The image of his face miraculously left an impression on the cloth. The series Veronica’s Cloths explores the residual nature of physical and emotional trauma.

Each work is a collage assembled on a vintage handkerchief in a manner purposefully pointing to that which is “grandmotherly,” wise, and reflective. The unexpected juxtapositions of familiar materials, emotionally-charged images, and menacing objects (insects, spiders, snakes) are designed to attract and repel the viewer – an uncanny valley.

The works represent flashes in the mind’s eye and suggest an untold drama of violation, loss, anger, grief, pain, and shame. The images are photographs of details from objects in public collections and museums (art, natural history, cemeteries, arboreta, et. al.). These details taken out of context suggest clues to a more complex narrative drama and beg the question, “what happened?” They represent the hauntings of experience.

The works are informed by my heritage as an Irish-American (non-practicing) Roman Catholic and my beliefs in feminism, secular humanism, and social justice. Writings on phenomenology, ontology, hauntology, and semiotics provide theoretical underpinnings. I admire contemporary vernacular art, Mexican retablos, Huipil Grande Traje de Gala of the Istmo de Tehuntepec tradition and other types of resplandors, religious shrines, Baroque art, 17th Century Dutch still life paintings, Haitian Voudou flags, and African power figures (nkisi) of Kongo tradition.

Biography

K. Johnson Bowles has exhibited in more than 80 solo and group exhibitions nationally. Feature articles, essays, and reviews of her work have appeared in more than 30 publications including Sculpture, SPOT, Surface Design Journal, and The Washington Post. She is the recipient of fellowships from National Endowment for the Arts, Houston Center for Photography, the Visual Studies Workshop, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts. In 2020, more than 65 works from her most recent body of work, Veronica’s Cloths, have been selected for publication in 29 art and literary journals across the US including the American Journal of Poetry, the William and Mary Review, Coffin Bell, and CandyFloss among others. In addition, she has written critical essays for Afterimage and has curated more than 125 exhibitions of Chinese, African, and American art. She received her MFA in photography and painting from Ohio University and BFA in painting from Boston University.

Materials used:

Fabric, plastic, metal