Visual artist Elana Bowsher on seeing the challenge as motivation

Your recent paintings are much more abstract and bodily than what I’ve seen of your work. How did this shift in your practice come to be?

It came through thinking about how I wanted to grow and mature as a painter and what kind of painter I really wanted to be. I saw my figurative work as a really good start, but I wanted to be a painter where there’s a bit more ambiguity and mystery and refinement within each piece. And the way I tried to solve that problem was through abstraction and formal experimentation in the studio.

I had this big painting in my studio, and I was taking a detail photo of that. And when I saw the detail, I thought that this, in itself, should be a painting. And when I made that painting, I loved it. Then I refined that painting, and from there I made it bigger, I used more colors, different colors. I started going formally, and I liked what I saw.

I think this body of work is really expansive. It can go in so many directions. What could I do if there’s more shapes on the next one? What could I do if there’s more texture? If there’s an area of way more detail in one section and huge swaths of one color in another, how would that change what people infer from the work?

Is this excitement—about all the different directions this kind of painting can go in—something you felt with prior bodies of work?

This feels more me. It feels like no one else could do this. This is my idea as an artist. And this looks like my work. I like it when people make associations with me and other artists, but no one’s ever made a painting that is exactly like mine. My newest painting is a step towards me.

Elana Bowsher, Green Landscape, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 70 inches (152.4 x 177.8 cm)

It’s so hard to have the confidence to make a shift like that in your practice. Was it hard to explain to other people when you shifted your practice in this new direction? Did you face any pushback?

Yes, I did. But not with Hannah [Hoffman] and Adrianna [Cole]. They got it right away. But, yeah, there were previous people who I’ve worked with who were like, “Stick to the pelvic bones.”

I think the job of an artist is to just try and keep pushing yourself, and I don’t understand when people don’t do that. It’s like, it’s your job. You want to get better at your job and keep growing.

Definitely.

I always look at my paintings with a very critical eye. I’m sure most artists do. And I think, how do I get better, and how do I become more me as an artist? And because I had the support I care about, I thought, well, I don’t care what other people think. You’ve got to be a little rebellious as an artist, even if it’s quiet rebellion.

How do you balance that career aspect of artmaking with art as a creative pursuit?

I’m very interested in the business side of this world. I like thinking about that part. And I will say, with my show at Hannah Hoffman, I went all in on the creative part.

Elana Bowsher, Pelvis, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 70 inches (152.4 x 177.8 cm)

I started working on it in February. I made a list of goals of what I wanted, which some of them were just that I wanted the show to have a certain mood. I wanted it to be very sensual and a bit moody. I didn’t know exactly what kind of mood, but I wanted it to feel mature and bodily, and I wanted to be brave. And so, with that set of instructions to myself, I just went all in.

I decided that I would ignore the people, or the part of me that said, “Just do the same work.” And I thought it was actually a prudent business decision, also. For my first actual solo show in LA, to make a big leap, because that shows myself and the viewers that I am growing… So, I thought it was a business and an artistic move. At this point, I’m not far enough in my career to be stuck with one thing. I want to set myself up to have a very free and expansive new body work.

You said that you like thinking about the business side. What do you mean by that?

Right now, it’s an interesting time. I think, to be honest, a lot of artists and gallerists started upping their pricing in a really significant way that wasn’t equating to the amount of shows they had had. So we were just careful with pricing. I think it’s important to not rush that side of things.

Obviously, it’s very scary to have this as your job. You feel like you need to take every opportunity, but actually it’s a good business decision to say no to things. I’ve learned that the hard way. I’ve made decisions based off stress, off monetary stress and thinking other opportunities wouldn’t come. But I think all you can do is learn from that.

And then it’s also so important to find the right fit business-wise. With this show and working with Hannah, it was the exact right fit for both of us. Because she saw the work and responded to it. She watched this body of work grow, especially over the past year, until she offered me a show. There was no forcing a square peg in a round hole or whatever. And that’s lucky.

I’m curious to hear about how this work connects to LA, where you and I both live. I feel like I see so much art that’s more vocal about the fact that it’s by an LA painter. But this feels very otherworldly. The pinks I recognize a bit from LA.

That’s a really good question. It’s funny, because a collector came into my studio, and was like, “That’s so funny that you’re from San Francisco, because these look like Bay Area colors.”

Elana Bowsher, Untitled, 2024, oil on linen, 13 x 10 inches (33 x 25.4 cm)

I really didn’t know what they meant. But then I was thinking about Diebenkorn and Wayne Thiebaud. And my painting does have that! The dirty, muddy stuff. Which probably comes from the weather there.

I think what I get from LA is more practical. The cost of living here, while exorbitant, is not as exorbitant as New York. Or the Bay. I think that LA gave me the freedom to have changed bodies of work and explore. We have that freedom a little bit more here.

The color palette, I think it just… I didn’t want 10 different color palettes in this show. Most of the underpainting is brown, and so, even though there’s cooler and warmer paintings, it is all united by this muddy, earthier tone. I think I could probably answer your question better after I get back from New York in the fall, to see if my palette changes.

Elana Bowsher, Dive, 2024, oil on linen, 60 x 96 inches (152.4 x 243.8 cm)

I feel like there is something kind of Alice Waters about your painting.

Yeah. Love her.

What are you going to do in New York?

I am taking over a friend’s studio. I’m going to paint. I’m going to make works on paper. I’m going to experiment with new materials. I’m just going to try and grow and challenge myself. Obviously, I’ve gone to New York a lot, and I always go and see shows there, but even just being there and going to see the type of work that’s there, I hope it will push me further.

You have an interesting narrative with painting, where the artwork is a challenge, a battleground. Can you trace the roots of that back in your life?

I was a very serious ballerina. That’s a very challenging art. You’re never good enough. And I went to very rigorous high school, too.

I think I definitely approach painting as problem-solving. That probably comes from how I grew up. In San Francisco, in the community I was raised in, it was so much about being better, getting better. So I push myself, not even in a stressful way. But there’s always problems that come up in a painting or making a work of art, and so, I think, well, how do you solve those problems? And that’s not a negative thing. I take it as motivation.

I don’t know why you would be an artist if you aren’t willing to face a challenge. It’s already so difficult, so why would I do it if it was not exciting, if it didn’t move me forward as a human? If I didn’t want a challenge, I would choose something else.

Elana Bowsher, Abstract Plume VI, 2024, oil on linen, 50 x 40 inches (127 x 101.6 cm)

If you are so conscious of being critical of your work, is it hard to know when to end?

That’s something I talk with my therapist about a lot. Like you have to have a critical eye as a writer, as a painter, whatever. But hopefully, when you’re working you can let that subside a little bit.

Like being in the painting is one way to emerge on the other side of your self-criticism.

That is actually why I listen to podcasts when I paint. It’s a little bit distracting in a really good way, so it takes away my anxiety, my fully critical brain. It’s a little bit distracting in a really beautiful way. If I am listening to music, it has to be really lyric-heavy music. If it’s too moody or there’s no lyrics, I get too in my head.

What kind of podcasts?

Murder podcasts.

You’re not the first painter that I’ve talked to that listens to true crime while they paint. Actually, have you considered working in any other mediums?

Yeah. I went to UCLA mostly for ceramics and sculpture. I would definitely like to bring that part of my practice back in, to meld it with this new body of work in some way. And ceramics is so much a part of LA and San Francisco art history, so it would really make sense for me. I just have to figure out how to enter that, where it makes sense in conversation with painting.

Did you go to an MFA program?

No.

What was it like trying to be an artist when you were right out of undergrad?

I worked for a couple artists. I worked for Shio Kusaka for about eight months. I feel like all artists should do that, and most artists do, but that was good training. At least, to see how she ran her day. It’s not so much about the technical stuff, but, yeah, speaking of the business stuff—Shio and Jonas [Wood] are so clued into how to be good businesspeople. And then I worked for Liz Glynn, who’s a sculptor, and I did the ceramic part of her projects. And those were really good learning experiences.

After that I decided to immerse myself in the LA art community. I had a full-time job, and I was doing my art in the afternoons and evenings. I felt like I was pushing myself enough that I didn’t want to interrupt that flow and go do an MFA program. I felt like I was meeting enough people and looking at enough work that I was feeding myself.

Where do you see your work going within painting?

I think experimenting with more texture, more depth—those are two things I really want to push for the next paintings. I really liked working at a larger scale. Eight feet long by five feet. Working at that scale feels very exciting.

After I take a good break, I feel very excited about all the areas I could move towards. I’m really excited to incorporate drawing into the new works. I would love to do a works on paper show or a works on cardboard show. How would that work? How would that mess things up in a good way?

Elana Bowsher, Hannah Hoffman, June 29 - August 10, 2024, install view

Elana Bowsher recommends:

Always Reaching: The Selected Writings of Anne Truitt

Leaving and listening to long voice memos from close friends

Driving at night in the winter with the heat on and the windows cracked

Cowboy Carter on repeat

Longform Podcast

This content originally appeared on The Creative Independent and was authored by Claudia Ross.

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