"Spectral Evidence" by Nancy Bowen Press
Old Town Hall hosts Nancy Bowen's "Spectral Evidence" Exhibition
Inspecting generational penitence, Bowen brings new perspective to Salem Witch Trials
Salem, Massachusetts - Inspired by a true story of Colonial American judgement and repentance, Nancy Bowen, sculpture artist based out of New York but with ancestral roots in Salem, creates a visual interpretation of guilt and remorse through her installation “Spectral Evidence”. The installation will be on display at Salem’s historical Old Town Hall from February 10 to March 19, 2022. Bowen seeks inspiration for this installation through her ancestor, Samuel Sewall, a judge in the Salem Witch Trials who later publicly recanted and confessed his sins in church about the role he played. Inspecting the famous trial in a new way, Bowen visually interprets Sewall’s penitence and gives space for the people tried and killed as witches. Twenty gravestones face off their accuser while he bears the burden of their deaths.
Riffing off Early American gravestone imagery Bowen deconstructs the “death head” image to create winged creatures with feet stuck in the amorphously shaped stones. The dead could rise again- at least in spirit. While these sculptures were originally conceived as gravestones honoring the wrongfully killed, they took on layers of meaning during their making. They became markers of Covid death, of gun violence death, and of other senseless killings. They take on a feeling of collective mourning for all that has been lost during these difficult times.
The figure sculpture inspired by Samuel Sewall himself depicts a rambunctious version of a hair shirt standing atop a scaffolding covered with gallows. More tiny gallows hang from shanks of hair in the shirt and cascade onto the scaffolding. This representation of guilt and shame is a vibrant and slightly humorous apparition, a visual cautionary tale.
Along with the sculptural installation Bowen is showing a suite of collages that accompany the 46 stanzas of Elizabeth Willis’ poem, The Witch. Willis, herself a descendant of one of the alleged witches, has written a luminous poem that combines folklore and observation into a celebration of women.
Described as “humorously odd and gravely unsettling”, the public is invited to experience this unique installation in Old Town Hall, located at 32 Derby Square, from February 10 through March 19. Doors will be open from 2:00 to 6:00pm on Thursdays and Fridays and from 12:00 to 4:00 pm on Saturdays and Sundays.
Volunteers are being sought to help ‘gallery sit’ during the above open hours, if interested please email ctitchenell@salem.com.
Artist talks with Nancy Bowen will take place February 12th, March 5th, and March 19th at 3:00 pm, where she will discuss her inspiration in more detail and answer questions.
Admission to the installation and artist talks is FREE to the public. Masks and vaccination cards will be required.
About the Artist
Nancy Bowen is a mixed media artist known for her eclectic mixtures of imagery and materials in both two and three dimensions. Her sculpture and drawings exist in an in -between zone of form and idea, of abstraction and representation. Her work offers a poetic commentary on our quickly changing material culture. Bowen has had over a dozen solo exhibitions throughout the United States and Europe including the Lesley Heller Gallery in NYC, Annina Nosei Gallery in NYC, Galerie Farideh Cadot in Paris, the Betsy Rosenfield gallery in Chicago, and the James Gallery in Houston. She has been included in group shows in various museums around the country. She has won awards from Anonymous was a Woman, the National Endowment for the Arts, the New York Foundation for the Arts, The MacDowell Colony, Yaddo, The Jentel Foundation and the European Ceramic Work Center among others. She is a Professor of Sculpture at Purchase College, SUNY, and maintains a studio in the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Learn more: http://nancybowenstudio.com