Meta Incognita (Unknown Edge / Mysterious Land) is not simply the outcome of an artist’s travels across the Canadian Arctic. The series—completed in the years following—is infused by sensory memories, plein air sketches, photographs and a variety of visual, literary, and remembered sources. Arctic Dreams, Barry Lopez’ 1986 study of the Canadian far north provided a central philosophical framework through which Bowller could make sense of her subject. Lopez discusses Arctic explorers' sense of “disassociation” from the landscape, as it “functions as little more than a stage.” Simultaneously, “the mind is trying to find its place within the land, to discover a way to dispel its own sense of estrangement.” Meta Incognita seeks to achieve this, and by divorcing man from the landscape, Bowller presents a method by which man’s fraught relationship with the Arctic can be overcome. The landscape is no longer a stage upon which humanity exhibits itself, but rather becomes the sole focus of attention.

Extract from exhibition essay by Andree Ruggeri

Works on paper & stone, oil on canvas + ceramic collaboration with Sophie Harle