| San Diego
artist Jean Lowe is known for her life-sized installations in which she
creates elaborately decorated period rooms from paint, canvas, enamel, resin,
and papier-mâché. Her salon rooms, often drawing on 18th- and 19th-century
French design, are forums in which she inverts the original purpose of the
salon (for the aristocracy) to critique social, political, economic, and
cultural issues within our own culture. Lowe's opinions on land development,
ecology, agricultural practice, and a host of other social concerns are
"hidden" in plain view in these beautifully rendered paintings, furniture,
books, and carpets. She has adapted the title of her installation from Thomas
Cole's 19th-century painting series "The Course of Empire," a five painting
visual commentary on nature and the way in which humans affect nature by
"civilizing" it through descruction of the land. Jean Lowe is an artist
in residence. |
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