Scott Bowering

Natura Naturans

July 3 – 31, 2008
Reception / Thursday, July 3, 6–9pm 

Soil Gallery is pleased to present Vancouver artist Scott Bowering's first solo exhibition in the United States.

In Natura Naturans, the silence of ordinary material items becomes generative. Utilizing and replicating commonplace materials such as insulation, household latex paint, and consumer packaging, 'Natura Naturans'—'nature naturing'—conceives of art as a social process that is seeded from seemingly empty physical forms.

The three distinct sculptural pieces that form Natura Naturans draw upon memory, anecdote, and hearsay to furnish context and meaning. Bowering's project at once emphasizes the physical actuality of these objects, and a completely immaterial (but no less real) social component that provides a range of plausible intents or suppositions about the nature of the work.

Concerning the title 'Natura Naturans,' the artist explains:

"... it's derived from 16th century philosopher Baruch Spinoza. 'Natura naturans' implies something continuing to act, grow, create, live or change. The term doesn't deny, but does not necessarily imply anything like a comprehensive system or structure or rationale." 

Accordingly, Natura Naturansattempts to provide an experience of art that circumvents clear-cut statements of purpose and content on the part of the artist, and the temptation, on the part of the interested viewer, to accept these statements as 'fact.' Instead, his project allows prosaic socially generated distortions, often considered peripheral to the experience of art—a mood, a distraction, a misunderstanding through disinterest or the desire for the work to mean a particular thing, or simply the unintended shifts of meaning that occur when viewpoints and information are exchanged—to become an integral part of its apprehension. 

Based in Vancouver, Scott Bowering is an instructor at Emily Carr University and Simon Fraser University and has exhibited work in Canada, Europe and the United States. Currently exhibiting with the first International Roaming Tehran Biennial, he is a two time recipient of Canada Council Research and Production Grants.