Frank Bowling
Frank Bowling is one of the most significant artists of the late-20th and early-21st centuries. His work is associated with bright fields of colours – yellows, pinks, reds, blues – melting into each other and inundating the pictorial space with warmth and energy. Yet, behind this bright palette lies a deeply personal engagement with the theme of human suffering.


Born in British Guiana (now Guyana), Bowling’s early memories were marked by violence – his father’s beatings, the presence of beggars, and stories of political and religious executions. These experiences, alongside images of his mother, his childhood home, and the unique light of Guyana, profoundly influenced his work. The contrast between the intensity of light in the tropics and its subdued tone in northern Europe often finds expression in his paintings.
At 19, eager for new experiences and seeking a better life, Bowling moved to London with plans to become a poet, but he switched his attention to fine art, and he graduated from the Royal College of Arts with a painting degree. During his early career, he adopted an expressive figurative style, creating works with autobiographical and socio-political themes. These early paintings often depicted scenes of violence and pain – women giving birth, beggars, and wartime executions – drawing upon his memories and the geopolitical anxieties of the era.

It was only after moving to New York in 1966 that Bowling’s work transitioned to abstraction. Mid-1960s New York was in cultural and political turmoil, with the Civil Rights Movement and the anti-Vietnam war movement in full swing. In the arts, Abstract Expressionism, Minimalism, and Colour Field painting dominated, alongside the growth of the Black Arts Movement and a push for the visibility of Black artists. Bowling resisted the expectation that Black artists’ work should focus solely on political or racial themes, advocating instead for the freedom to explore abstraction. Through exhibitions and writings, he became a leading voice for Black abstract artists, championing their rightful place in critical discourse.
During this period, Bowling’s work became associated with Colour Field painting, particularly through his ‘Map Paintings’ (1971). These works feature vast fields of intense colour with stencilled outlines of continents glowing with light, imbued with historical and political undertones. This was followed by his ‘Poured Paintings’ (1973–1978), which explored controlled accidents and intense colour combinations.


Since returning to London in 1975, Bowling has continued to push the boundaries of painting, experimenting with colour, texture, structure, and the combination of materials, with unceasing curiosity. Bowling’s work is often associated with the materiality of painting, which he explores through an ever-evolving array of materials, techniques, and processes, anything that serves to bind pigment to canvas counts. Over six decades, oil, acrylic paint, impasto, household emulsion, ammonia, pour techniques, stencils, sand, gels, screen printing, and even personal and industrial objects have all made their way into his paintings.

Today, in his South London studio, where friends and family often visit, his practice has taken on a collaborative dimension. The involvement of others in the making of the work adds new layers of experience and memory to be embedded in the canvas, supplementing the already rich pictorial exploration that defines Bowling’s practice.
Bowling’s work combines personal, historical, and political narratives with extensive formal experimentation. His painting is always innovative, and always deeply personal. His colours are brilliant, and beneath their surface his profound humanity is ever present.
Ana Teles for London Art Walk
January 2025