Ric Bower

Ric Bower seeks to explore how aesthetics and satire might be used to disclose truth in a political context. These enquiries are often centered around issues relating to asylum policy.  Bower trained first as a draughtsman then as a photographer; his practice now extends into writing, design, performance and tattooing.  He has been informally mentored by the Angolan artist Nástio Mosquito and the Belgian artist Kelly Schacht since 2018.

 

Since 2018 he has collaborated with Jan Fabre, Nástio Mosquito, Kelly Schacht, Egill Sæbjörnsson, Megan Broadmeadow,  Va-Bene Elikem Kofi Fiatsi (aka crazinisT artisT),  Elisabeth Efua Sutherland, and Richard Bowers. and he  has exhibited in Wales, Belgium and Ghana. He often assumes the persona of Fagot Koroviev (a nod to the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov’s demonic choir master) the Minister for Security of the fictitious nation of Botrovia.

 

Bower says of his practice ‘I do not want to make work that sits meekly in the gallery meekly waiting to be observed. I want to make work that follows you out of the gallery to your car, slithers into the back seat behind you and then shanks you as you drive home’.