The collection

Michael Bowen Cafe Life, oil on canvas. Lent by Phil Johnson In Baroque painting the use of shadows suggests the substance of how the soul made itself felt. In Bowen's work there is the suggestion of contemporary mysticism: color becomes a spiritual opportunity --not merely the balance of dark and light. Balance by contrast is a conscious effort by the artist. This almost completely symmetrical composition employs balancing of the figures on either ends of the picture plane, at both ends to symbolize the opposed notions of joy and sorrow, vitality and deat From re beat exhibition san Francisco 1996