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Artistaday.com - Find new contemporary art, create your own gallery of art

Margaret Bowland  Brooklyn, NY

'Flower Girl #2'
'The Small Dancer'

* All images used with permission. Please do not distribute without first contacting the artist.


About Margaret


Margaret Bowland was born in Burlington, North Carolina, and studied studio art and English at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Her work explores the concept of beauty—what it means to be beautiful, but also to what extent it is significant today, both in the world and in art. ‘Being beautiful is a form of wealth, says Bowland.

She considers that the commonly held ideal of beauty is to be tall, thin and white. And while we recognize deviations from this norm can have appeal, are deviations nonetheless. ‘The need to be beautiful fuels one of the largest and most ruthless industries in our world,’ she says.

Bowland currently lives in Brooklyn and teaches painting at New York Academy. Her work has been exhibited at Greenville County Museum of Art in South Carolina and Babcock Galleries in New York, among others.


Recommended by our guest curators


O’Neil Scott

Philadelphia, PA artist

"Her paintings convey a theme of self-love and acceptance. The subject matter has a way of relating to everyone and tugging on human emotion."


Margaret appears in the following Top 10 lists


'New York'

'#Instagram'

'@Facebook'

'2015'


10 of 86 reactions displayed


"captivating!"

"the women you paint are so divine, they're so succulent and beautiful"

"Blood is spilling on all the beauty and the money so I must make myself white so I won't be hurt in the same way my ancestors have been hurt even through making a living.....I like this..."

"simply brilliant"

"some amazing art ime studying art in Liverpool England and in my final exam ime using you as my artist ive done one of your pics in pastel ime from a mixed background totally love your work one love"

"The paintings are truly beautiful, and very real. Despite what others say, I do believe that people think of beauty of being the blonde bombshell. Times are changing, but not as much as most people think. Where I live, you simply aren't beautiful if you're not caucasian. I'm of mixed heritage, and the paintings arent misconstrued at all. In my experience, it doesnt matter what kind of person that you are, beauty is judged by skin color. I've struggled with that for a while now, and the paintings give voice to what my communtity and many others do feel. If the perception of beauty has changed, I certainly havent seen evidence of that."

"This is some fantastic art! The kind that I get the most emotional response from, realism with a twist. I may miss the artists' theme or idea that they would like to convey, but I ask forgiveness. There are a few others here in the Brooklyn artists, the realists, that knock it out of the park. This type of talent cannot be ...whatever... they are artists. Period. We , dear friends, are not."

"the first tells you a lot about society today. Many color people would believe that your not perfect or important enough if you aren't white. Well this art shows us the morals we have, we might be different color and might not show of how much it hurts us when there is so much races and discrimination going around. I think this painting has more value in many peoples eyes and what we become to be now!"

"Amazing work - and she's only just begun!"

"So beautiful!"

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