Event overview
A Seminar with The Frank Bowling Studio, hosted by Centre for Arts and Learning
‘Known and Unknown’: Frank Bowling’s Birthday with the Frank Bowling Studio,
26 February 2025, 5.30-7pm
Sir Frank Bowling has tested the boundaries and edges of the known in contemporary art for many decades. He was born in Guyana (then British Guiana) in 1934 and has lived and worked in the UK since 1953. The 26th February 2025 is Frank’s 91st Birthday.
Early in his career, Frank created a ‘birthday’ series of paintings that expresses the boundary states, emotions and materialities of giving birth – into the known and unknown.
Instead of telling us what his paintings are about, Frank has often said, ‘What do you think it is?’, ‘What do you see?’ And these speculative positionings enable a questioning of Frank’s art and its contextual possibilities, causing the works to remain materially alive for learners at all levels of study, within and outside formal learning experiences.
The Frank Bowling Studio connects internationally with cultural and learning organisations, enabling arts educators and students to reach into new spaces that unpack the colonial constructions of the familiar canon of abstract art. Among their current projects, The Studio is creating a portfolio of resources for art teachers, at primary and secondary levels of education, that enable diverse communities and demographics to respond to what Gloria Ladson-Billings (1995) calls ‘culturally relevant pedagogy’.
In this Birthday seminar, Professor Ben Bowling, Studio Director, Susi Sahmland, Education Lead, and Dr Kate Keohane, Fellow in Art History at The Ruskin School of Art, University of Oxford and researcher at the Studio, will introduce approaches, visions, discoveries, and imaginative possibilities of Frank’s work, connecting in-depth with its history and contexts. There will be interactive workshop tasks connecting with learning resources that the Studio has developed. We hope you will join us in celebrating Frank Bowling’s birthday, and all of the adventurous knowledges his work encourages.
Dates & times
| Date | Time | Add to calendar |
|---|---|---|
| 26 Feb 2025 | 5:30pm - 7:00pm |
Accessibility
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