Exposure: Dannielle Bowman
In this regular column for CR, art director Gem Fletcher highlights the work of new photographers who are on the up. Here, she looks at the work of Dannielle Bowman
Dannielle Bowman’s first project Here, Now, a critique of what gets memorialised and what doesn’t, speaks to the people left out of the grand historical narratives we are familiar with. She photographed monuments, artefacts of antiquity and landscapes of historical significance in the US to expose the tension between past and present, material and object, source and outcome, and humans and the land. “I want to inspire people to be more critical about the world they live in, how it is presented to them and the agenda behind it,” she says.
Here, Now is a kind of blueprint for Bowman’s practice. As a photographer, she delves deeply into her subject matter, each frame nuanced, each composition rigorous, combining a rich visual language with intellectual curiosities.
Bowman grew up in Los Angeles, and the city continues to be an essential influence. “It is a city run entirely by imagemakers and offers the possibility that you could be a part of that,” she says. Cinema was at the heart of her childhood: “I had a mother who on Sundays didn’t take me to church but took me to the movies. Sometimes we would see two movies in a day, and we watched everything from Clueless to art house.”