Miles Lowry is a visual and sound artist, writer and director best known for his vibrant paintings and life-size sculptures which explore the body as an expressive canvas. He began exhibiting paintings and sculptures in 1981 in Victoria BC.

As a painter he pioneered spraying with fine watercolours on rag paper and produced exhibitions inspired by locations in New Mexico, England, Wales and Ireland. In his series ‘Becoming Visible’ both painting and sculpture were born in the mythology of his Welsh and Irish background.

After exploring ceramics he searched for a sculptural medium more suited to his painterly approach. Inspired by Sharon Yuen and her Kakali paper in Vancouver’s Granville Island in the early nineties Lowry successfully changed mediums from clay to light-weight yet durable cotton fibre. This allowed him to work life-size and he began to develop his travelling exhibitions, ‘Two Tribes” , ‘Rites and Passages’ and an ongoing series of cast figures ‘Crucial Fragments’ establishing him as one of Western Canada’s most versatile contemporary artists. After receiving the Peoples Choice award at ARTROPOLIS in Vancouver BC in 2002, his work received national television coverage on CBC ARTSPOTS.

A careful study of painter Jack Wise and Chinese painter Lin Chin Chek saw Lowry’s paintings take on a refined textural approach on Mulberry paper with Asian brushes and a merging of techniques. The fine traditional paper is an ideal medium for traveling and he has for several years been creating a collection of paintings based on travel, sanctuary, and specifically his residencies at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre at Annaghmakerrig in Ireland - a workplace for artists from around the world.

Further exhibitions ‘Cipher' and ‘Marks of Devotion’ revealed a significant collaboration of painting with ancient texts with calligraphic artist Georgia Angelopolous. This led to participation in group exhibitions in the USA include 'Painted Words' at the Sebastopol Center for the Arts,’Calligraphies in Conversation' at the San Francisco Public Library and publication in the Letter Arts Revue.

In 2019, Lowry was awarded a fellowship at the Center for the Study of Religion and Society at the University of Victoria to create paintings based on the Irish Ogham alphabet, followed by another Irish residency, and the first exhibition of his Ogham works 'Letters From the Trees’.
 

In 2020, he presented his solo exhibition of recent work from Ireland ‘Breathing Spaces’ at the Massey Gallery, the sales and rental department of Art Gallery of Greater Victoria reflecting a fresh attention to landscape on the edge of abstraction.

During the Covid crisis he painted ‘One Wave’, a series on birch-wood panels - each a single wave caught in a decisive moment or human emotion. With gestural marks, wet floating layers and through the unpredictable influence of the ocean, Lowry's waves materialize into something moody and real. Formed with calligraphic bones and washed with layers of powdery pigment they unfold as if summoned.

As Artistic co-Director for Suddenly Dance Theatre he explores dance creating for live performance, television and video installation. In 2005 he wrote and co-directed OPIUM for Bravo! Television inspired by French poet Jean Cocteau, introducing the film at the Lincoln Centre in NYC in 2007. His next films Aisling and Guthrie Swims the Lake, for Bravo!FACT, featured Lowry’s music and vocals. His music and design were featured in Suddenly Dance Theatre’s touring performances in South Korea for Courtyard for a Bird (2008) and Art of War (2015). He is currently creating sound design and music for Suddenly Dance Theatre’s six part international dance-film series LUCKY MAYBE, in Canada and South Korea.

 

Select works are available via www.loveandliberty.ca. For more information and artist portfolio visit www.mileslowry.ca