Works on Paper

“…Lowry is an American artist who lived in China for several years near the Old Summer Palace in Beijing. While in China, she adopted Chinese painting techniques and materials and allowed the traditions of Chinese brush painting to permeate her already nature-inspired work.

The output from her Chinese immersion is a curious blend of American wit, bold and challenging, and Oriental mystery and minimalism. Lowry paints small things in nature, both for their own beauty_although not as a realist_and for what they represent. A thistle, a crow, a garlic bulb, the images are deceptively simple but supercharged with color that is both warm and natural but startlingly intense, as color may be in the spiky flower on a thistle or the sheen of a pomegranate seed.

Chinese painting is about looki ng at something until it is truly seen. The thing is often small and simple, but it must be studied – not to be understood but to be experienced. That experience is an enlightenment that comes not from the object, but from the observer. I believe it is this kind of “Aha!” experience; so does Lowry. Small as they are, these paintings have the energy and grace of big, art-like Georgia O’Keefe or Helen Frankenthaler.”

Margaret Hawkin – Chicago Sun Times