Biography

Gabby Cowie is an oil painter from Victoria BC, born in 2005. Her art primarily focuses on the integration of ideas and interpretations of the Memento Mori. The Memento Mori is a reminder of death and mortality that has deep roots in art history.

Through her pieces, she attempts to represent the overlap between life and death. She often uses imagery of children’s toys and items balanced with imagery of blood, sharps, and medications. This dichotomy is central to her work. She uses bright colours, simple backgrounds and a realistic style to highlight this balance of what may be seen as “good” and “bad”. Her work attempts to break down this “contrast” and shed light on the overlap of life and death through the use of memento mori. Abjection is also a through-line in her pieces. The inclusion of the abject in self-portraits explores the “grotesque” parts of what it is to be human, and questions the societal view of abjection itself.

She often works in a style inspired by the “I Spy” book series (with photographs by Walter Wick and prompts/poems written by Jean Marzollo). This style puts the focus on the objects in each piece and any small details that could be important to create a narrative, encouraging the viewer to “spy” what they can in each piece.  

Many of her ideas are based on her thinking as she completes her philosophy minor, taking courses such as death and dying, biomedical ethics, ethics of violence, war and terrorism, theories of justice, theory of perception, philosophy of mind, etc.

She encourages all who see her work to ask themselves: what do they Spy in each piece?