For Fragile Interior: Drawings on Painted Paper, my October 2007 show at Sliding Door Gallery in Denver, I made drawings on paper prepared with variable washes. These drawings were inspired in part by medical artists' drawings of the heart muscle. I primarily used sepia ink, which has an incredible range of colors--from the palest of pinks to deep brown--and which (itself an organic material) alludes beautifully to the interior of a human body.  The process of enabling this organic substance to bloom and bleed on paper, another organic material (all cotton), reflects the processes of the human body.

In general, I use brushes loosely, dropping paint and ink into pools of color. The organic imagery that emerges is similar to what's found in nature. No straight lines here: Washes flow unpredictably across paper. Color, sometimes iridescent, intensifies arbitrarily where the paper buckles from dampness. Sometimes resists alter the surface, or fine lines in ink emphasize interesting areas. Surface and space intermingle, ambiguously. The painting tells me where complex and intriguing forms and edges want to emerge. Attending to these elements is a highly meditative process: non-verbal, not intellectual.

This work is serious play, intensely pleasurable for me as an artist. When it succeeds, it invites viewers  into its own world, compelling their participation and rewarding them with joy in return.

Priscilla Fowler