To wear a beard (2021)

Amy Bowles
To wear a beard
2021
acyrlic on 140lb watercolour paper
12 x 9 inches
 
 
“In 1979 my family moved from London, UK to a village in the southwest of England—population 200. Over the stonewall from our garden was a medieval church and graveyard. The graveyard housed many headstones hand-carved with loving memories. Some of the older folks that lived in the village at that time had grown up in this village and had not travelled further than 25 miles from their house at any point in their lives. We had entered a community of people that all knew each other or were somehow related. It was clear, as we got to know everyone, that our graveyard neighbours were the villager's ancestors going back a few 100 years. 
 
These 13 characters, painted in acrylic on watercolour paper, are drawn from my imagination. Upon showing these paintings to my mother she responded to them with the remark ‘I think these faces may be from your ancestral soul memory.’” — Amy Bowles, March 2021