Save Yourself, by Patrick Bower As a kid, I struggled with night terrors. I would wake up in a panic, my brain churning with formless anxiety. I soon learned that getting out of bed and making a drawing that represented the sensations I was experiencing could help quiet my mind. Once it was on the page, the tension lived there, not inside me. This process of translating physical sensations into visual compositions remains at the heart of my work. It’s a way of figuring out whatever I’ve absorbed from the people and things around me: From my body to the canvas.   I usually express these sensations as figures, but I look most closely at formal considerations. How do the shapes and lines interact with each other and with the space of the canvas? Where is the push, where is the pull? When I look at these structures, can I feel it in my body? And what do these people or objects mean to me?   Touch is also important to my process. I build up layers of texture with gesso,...

  Patrick Bower has lived in New York City since 2003, but he started life in Indianapolis, Indiana. After graduating from Indiana University with a degree in English and Classical Literature, he moved to Brooklyn to pursue a career in music. He released several albums under his own name and his band’s - The World Without Magic - and toured internationally. After health issues prompted a change in lifestyle, he returned to his first passion, drawing, which gradually grew into a serious practice. He has shown work in New York and is an active member of the NYC Crit Club and The Canopy Program, where, in 2023, he works under the mentorship of artist Clare Grill. He is also a founding member of Immaterial Projects, an artist-run curatorial collective.  Pictured: Patrick Bower - Untitled - Acrylic on canvas - 27" x 21" - 2023