Quicksand

Sarah Bowling: Quicksand

Rule Gallery

808 Santa Fe Drive, Denver, CO 80204

May 31-August 3, 2024

Admission: free

Review by Paloma Jimenez

Twisted forms, heavy with their own weight, aspirationally stretch and strain towards sweaty pastel gradients in Sarah Bowling’s current exhibition at Rule Gallery. Titled Quicksand, the expressively saggy sculptures and textured paintings grapple with the quiet ache of transformation. 

An installation view of Sarah Bowling’s exhibition Quicksand at Rule Gallery. Image by Wes Magyar, courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Amidst the corporate sterilization of pastel tints in the past decade, Quicksand comes as a refreshing reminder of color’s more transcendental potential. Bowling’s neon pastel palette resembles the luminous transitional time of a California sunrise. She balances the more buoyant creamsicle cloudscapes with psychologically heavy plaster voids. 

A view of Sarah Bowling’s works in her exhibition Quicksand. Image by Wes Magyar, courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Bowling selected materials specifically for their ability to hold evidence of their maker’s handling and physical effort. An excerpt from her artist statement reads: “I work with materials that respond to weight like a body. Plaster and paint succumb to gravity. They drip and sag as I manipulate them, altering their own form by collapsing into themselves.” 

A detail view of Sarah Bowling’s Weeping willow, 2024, concrete, plaster, muslin, enamel, resin, 16 x 14 x 12 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Sarah Bowling, Weeping willow, 2024, concrete, plaster, muslin, enamel, resin, 16 x 14 x 12 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

The sculptures in the show stand at various askew angles—a collection of abject trophies for physical feats. In Weeping willow, a perilous tangle of periwinkle tubing sits atop a curvaceous plinth. The shape evokes a bundle of sweaty spandex workout clothes, equal parts embarrassing and triumphant. It captures the feeling of being the least balanced person in a yoga class, on the verge of collapse with each longer stretch, but still holding the pose; a teetering knot defying gravity. 

Sarah Bowling, I just wanted to be floating, 2024, plaster, enamel, foam, and resin, 9 x 7 x 3.5 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

A detail view of Sarah Bowling’s I just wanted to be floating, 2024, plaster, enamel, foam, and resin, 9 x 7 x 3.5 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Other sculptures in the show sit with solid awkwardness, glistening puckered folds and gaping holes on full display. I just wanted to be floating, finished in a buttery tint of chartreuse, occupies a short plinth, inviting the viewer to squat down to see it fully. The sphincter-esque void pulls and pushes the gaze with a sly sense of humor. Stare long enough into the hole and you might encounter a fleeting form of salvation.

Sarah Bowling, Spring frost I, 2024, plaster, enamel, and resin, 12 x 9.5 x 6.5 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Some of the sculptural forms have released their muscular tension altogether. The engorged monstera leaf shape of Spring frost I slumps down the side of a soft-edged plinth. Utilizing the side of the plinth—a space rarely activated by sculpture—the tender green slab captures a certain form of amiable exhaustion. Liquid smooth and anti-monumental, it yearns for a moment of rest. 

Sarah Bowling, Clouds shaped like the ocean, 2024, acrylic and oil on panel, 49 x 55 x 2.75 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

While Bowling’s sculptures capture the growing pains of bodily exertion, her paintings seem to point more towards the mental images conjured up during a sweat-induced haze. The ghostly squiggles in Clouds shaped like the ocean resemble meandering scrawlings on a condensation-enveloped window. Some marks allude to classic cloud configurations, while other lines wisp across the panel. Translucent layers of dripping paint remind us that the sky is not a mirage, it’s a material occurrence in a constant state of flux. 

Sarah Bowling, A quiet whisper, 2024, acrylic on panel, 5.75 x 5.25 inches. Image courtesy of Rule Gallery.

The smallest work in the exhibit, A quiet whisper, looks like Bowling started digging through a cloud to find the sky. And isn’t any form of transformation, bodily or emotionally, a bit like that? Finger marks press into an impasto layer to reveal a subtle gradient beneath. Pink fades into blue, bruised from firm handling. It’s a ponderous piece, like a fragment of something larger—a tempting slice of a twilight meringue pie.

A view of three sculptures by Sarah Bowling in her exhibition Quicksand. Image by Wes Magyar, courtesy of Rule Gallery.

Quicksand reveals the unique type of serenity that comes with surrendering to the force of gravity. Sarah Bowling’s exhibition, kicking off another sweaty summer, uncovers all the humor, inspiration, and weariness of getting through each day in our malleable sacks of skin. In the race towards transcendence, physical realities will always trip us up. We’re bound to our bodies, earthbound, below a changing sky. 

Paloma Jimenez (she/her) is an artist, writer, and teacher. Her work has been exhibited throughout the United States and has been featured in international publications. She received her BA from Vassar College and her MFA from Parsons School of Design.