Biography

Eleanor Bowen is a visual artist and writer, currently an associate lecturer at the University of the Arts London. She studied painting at Camberwell School of Arts & Crafts, and holds an MA in Visual Art and Theatre and a practice-based PhD (Wimbledon School of Art). Her practice operates primarily through sketchbook practice, devised/performed text and paratext, between image and text.

Further information: https://arts-london.academia.edu/eleanorbowen

Education and qualifications

  • 1974-7 BA (Hons) Fine Art (Painting), Camberwell School of Arts and Crafts, London
  • 1977-9 Abbey Major Scholarship, British School at Rome
  • 1997-8 MA Critical Studies, Visual Arts and Theatre, Wimbledon School of Art
  • 2000-5 Practice-based PhD (AHRB Doctoral Award in Creative and Performing Arts), Wimbledon School of Art, London

Selected group and solo exhibitions

  • 1996 For All Beneath the Moon, RSC residency touring exhibition of drawings: Newcastle Playhouse; RSC Collection, Stratford; Barbican Foyer Gallery, London
  • 2011 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait Exhibition, Kings Place Gallery, London
  • 2011 Many Hands, Royal Society, London
  • 2011 Manual Setting, Danielle Arnaud Gallery, London
  • 2012 Art on Fire, Camberwell Space, London
  • 2016 Ruth Borchard Collection: Next Generation, Piano Nobile, King’s Place, London [web link]
  • 2018 Time Unwrapped, Out of Time (Ruth Borchard Collection: Next Generation), Kings Place, London
  • 2019 Borderland, installation (image with text, archive objects, soundscape, text/image presentation), Wessex Gallery, Salisbury Museum
  • 2021 Can We Ever Know the Meaning of these Objects?, installation for group exhibition at Gallery 46, Whitechapel, London
  • 2023 Ruth Borchard Self Portrait exhibition online [web link]

Selected residencies, awards and commissions

  • 1994 Northern Arts Major Bursary (shared award)
  • 1994 Drawing Residency, Royal Shakespeare Company, Newcastle season
  • 2009/2010 Residency, Centre for Drawing Project Space, Wimbledon College, University of the Arts London

Devised/performed text

  • 2012 Co-devised and performed text, with Dr Laura Gonzalez, ‘The Hysteric as Mad: Unfolding an Exquisite Corpse’, for Inter-Disciplinary.Net conference ‘On Madness: Probing the Boundaries, Mansfield College, Oxford
  • 2014 Co-devised and performed text, with Dr Laura Gonzalez, ‘Reading Hysteria: Between Laughter and Crying’, Acts Re-Acts, Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London – [see images]
  • 2015 Devised and performed text, ‘This is That Has Been’, Acts Re-Acts 2, Wimbledon College of Arts, University of the Arts London
  • 2015 Co-devised and performed text, with Dr Laura Gonzalez, ‘Mothers, Daughters and Cryptophores’, Motherhood and Creative Practice: Maternal Structures in Creative Work, London South Bank University
  • 2015 Co-devised and performed text, with Dr Laura Gonzalez, ‘The object as witness’, Material Culture in Action: Practices of Making, Collecting and Re-enacting Art and Design, Glasgow School of Art

Publications

  • 2006 Performance Research Vol 11 No. 3 ‘Lexicon’
  • 2008 Performance Research Vol 13 No. 2 ‘On Choreography’, see [web link]
  • 2011 Visual Dialogues Brochure, Tate Britain (co-authored)
  • 2011 Visual Dialogues Strategic Commissioning Programme Evaluation Report, Tate Britain (co-authored)
  • 2012 Drawing and Longing: Proposal for Drawing as Paratext, [web link]
  • 2013 Dr Eleanor Bowen and Dr Laura González, ‘The Hysteric as Mad: Unfolding an Exquisite Corpse’, in ‘Beyond these Walls: Confronting Madness in Society, Literature and Art’ [ebook], edited by Helen Goodman, Bernadette V. Russo and Joana Zózimo, Oxford, Inter-Disciplinary Press. [web link]
  • 2014 ‘Between Laughter and Crying’, co-written with Dr Laura Gonzalez in Madness, Women and the Power of Art, edited by Frances Davies and Laura Gonzalez, Oxford, Inter-Disciplinary Press, 2014
  • 2015 ‘this is that has been’ in Performance Research Vol 20 No. 3 ‘On Ruins and Ruination’, London/NY: Routledge
  • 2016 ‘Parergorn: Proposal for an Inverse Archive’ in Bright Light 3: Ethos, University of the Arts London
  • 2017 ‘Drawing the Borderline’ in Theatre and Performance Design, London/NY: Routledge [web link]
  • 2019 ‘Drawing and Longing: Reading the Relics of Practice’, Journal of Juvenilia Studies, Juvenilia Press, University of New South Wales
  • 2020 Dr Eleanor Bowen and Dr Laura González, ‘Blueprint for a Ghost’ in Maternal in creative work: Intergenerational discussions on motherhood and art, London/NY: Routledge
  • 2023 Dr Eleanor Bowen and Dr Laura González, The Hysteric: Outline of a Figure, Taylor and Francis, Routledge (Taylor & Francis Group): London & New York