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"the architect of impossible physics"
E. Bowen with the 25 foot drawing	The premise underlying this series of work was established in an experiment in 1987, an in studio project - a drawing on a scroll of paper, 25 feet long by three feet wide, what became a mind search using the skill of drawing as an investigative process and method, originating and developing in concept and execution, from a dot and a scribble, on a large blank piece of paper. A challenge was set initially to see if I could sustain my concentration over a large area without falling into a trap of needless embellishments for the sake of covering space.	84.24 Kb
	I had been back in Trinidad for two years and had made the efforts to acclimatize, physically and socially, after having been in England for 14 years, this equatorial environment presented its own challenges of relevance. Fresh out of art school in the U.K., I had worked continuously for two years painting, but felt strongly a need to change or alter my direction. I thought that the method of drawing would allow for a maximum interplay of memory, skill, and immediacy, the space to invent.

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The experiment involved a methodology of continuously evolving and elaborating upon the initial intentional haphazard lines, reading into subsequent scribbles, smudges, lines and tones to find forms, or invent them. Early on, I became aware of the presence of a kind of formal and unseen alphabet, that only seemed masked by the illusions created on the paper’s surface. My mark - making seemed to belong and behave to an inner sense of personal order, or directives, for organizing the evolving pictorial space, a kind of interior guide, that became clearer, or illustrated, through the process itself on the paper and through deeper levels of concentration. In a sense I realized that I was telling a story of some kind and the story was evolved only by and through the technique. I treated the surface of the paper as I would the surface of a canvas, examining the concentrations and weights of color and form, or surface densities, except that the drawing was purposefully restricted to the monochrome exercise with a 4B pencil, eraser and a few stencils, no color.

The experiment was also a formal in-studio exercise on an attempted grand scale, an examination in the skill of drawing, as an elemental activity, an attempt to invent, reveal or find a personal fundamental language of mark - making, to raise the activity to another new level of specialization. In the search through the history of art, drawing, as a separate intellectual category, occupies a secondary stage to the more esteemed arts of painting and sculpture, but in my humble opinion, the skill is probably the closest to the written word, or preceding it, akin to poetry, almost an elemental activity in human language and the creation of knowledge, and very ancient.

The actions of making this twenty - five foot drawing began to assume vocational proportions as the weeks went by, the challenges and my own fascination deepened, as I realized how intensive the action could become. In an attempt to bring harmony to the evolving layers of information in the work, I began to repeat certain gestures, consciously becoming more aware of an " alphabet ". Lines becoming amorphous forms, crosses, zig-zags, circles, squares, thousands of dots, triangles - like an internal program of elemental references, of some twelve signifiers, that were appreciated unconsciously and consciously, in the weave or density of the evolving surface. The OM sign, the triangle,, square, circle, zig - zag or chevron, the cross, the swastika, the symbol for infinity, the crown, the spiral, the symbol of "the architect", and the dot. These signifiers are for me, mental paradigms and code carriers, and following the logic of the rectangular page, these "initial symbols" are employed laterally as mental constructs and physical elements. The language of this expression became very specific, to bring forward an internal and very personal mental space in a very precise manner.

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As my experience grew with the process, I called this technique my own " intuitive geometry ". It seemed to be the best way to describe what was happening on the pages in front of me. I felt as if I was carving out spaces and objects on the paper, bending space and occasionally including the haphazard and the absurd, then somehow trying to link all the resulting minute pictorial dramas together. I do not have an interest in geometry, nor can I profess to any kind of scholarly appreciation of the discipline, except to understand that it is a science of measuring and exploring space, but also a primary skill in our (linguistic) definitions of space, time. Geometry is a silent language of two and three-dimensional space. I can only speculate, because my concentration and attention is at the page itself, where I have discovered as it were, my own space, where I can sublimate and surrender to a completely mental interiority. It is in drawing that I have a capability to open on and into a quite strange internal landscape of biomachinery, human technology extending out of natural environments, cross dimensional objects, a multiplicity of symbol reference, a world of magick and technology. The process allowed for a state of maximum unfolding imagination, hampered only by the speed of the pencil across the surface of the page.

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The pieces are not meant to be " scholarly investigation on the nature of pictorial space", nor does the work espouse a world view or position, except for an appreciation of what is the intended result, a drawing executed solely in pencil. The simple metaphor is a printer linked directly to an expressive, internal, visual capacity, a specific brain function; an interior program and method of recording is activated and employed very economically, very precisely and in great detail, an original virtual space is invented with the process of the drawing.

The design desk is the arena where this concentration is focused and manifests as drawing, I am conscious that I am more writing than drawing, following impulses directly from the increasing focus, it is as if I allow myself to be partially hypnotized, and drawing is the method of transference and mediumship, silent, effective, and economical. The action is also to meditate, to keep the mind absolutely focused in the abstract, silent, and visual conversation of the technique being used, it is as if information is being transformed from one state, mental, to another, physical, in a very particular way. Concentration extracts or "pulls down" the mental information or impulses, the meditation at the desk facilitates the transfer and pictorial ordering of information via the pencil point to the page.

The style first emerged in 1987, with the attempt at the large drawing, which is now known as " the blueprint ": the title, " the architect of impossible physics " came to me as I was searching for a name or umbrella term to connect many personal beliefs, ideas, and attitudes. The name itself refers to and implies architecture and construction on the physical plane, the construction of what I could reasonably imagine and invent as impossible physics. Since a young child visiting many construction sites with my father, I have long been fascinated with the function of builder / architects and their work, as a child I wanted to be an architect first, an artist secondly. Over the years I studied drawing as a discipline, this background skill that is so akin to language itself; with the "blueprint", I was also trying to bridge a personal professional hurdle, and establish the action of drawing as a distinct category in my own portfolio and studio activity. The "blueprint" was an attempt at a personal review and overview of skill, but also to establish within my own consciousness a standard to work with, a platform of further intent.

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In 1993 I began work on what is now a series of some 60 smaller works on paper, works that in a nutshell describe the visual world of " the architect of impossible physics ", up to this point.

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The drawings have undergone significant shifts in understanding over the years, increased hours per piece, as I have delved deeper into a continuous experiment with the process, the pieces can take several months individually to execute, as they are made behind the business of an otherwise normal existence as a family man, artist, teacher, businessman. Since 1993, I have held private views at my studio, the occasional public exhibition, however the decision to have a website is a long cherished dream. With the purchase of a pc for the studio, it has been easier to access what I feel are relevant topics to the series of drawings, although to date, I am as yet to come across work of a similar nature on the web.

The web is an opportunity to share the ideas that have arisen in my thinking as a result of the working processes of the series, and also, as a gateway to expanding the context of such an entity called an" architect of impossible physics " - I have always felt that the series would begin another extension of itself that as yet cannot be predicted. I have tremendous satisfaction in making these works, it would be good to extend this confidence outwards and externally to an audience outside of this very private studio and geographical space.