Just Do It

Hodgepodge

by Monica Weymouth

Runs Aug. 18-Sept. 25, Falling Cow Gallery, 732 S. Fourth St., 215-627-4625, www.fallingcow.org

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Tim Bowen has kept busy over the past 30 years. The Philadelphia-based artist has experimented with figure compositions, three-dimensional shadowboxes and mixed-media pieces. He's displaying more than 100 of these works — many of them for the first time — at his own Falling Cow Gallery on Fabric Row.

"Each period is so different, it looks like a group show," says Bowen of his exhibit, which is divided into decades. "It's all the phases I went through." Vibrant colors and natural landscapes set the tone for nude females and well-dressed men playing guitars in the '70s. Peaceful scenes of home and suburban life dominate the '80s, while the glass and fabric pieces of the '90s are geometric and abstract. 2004's War and Piece series reflects a post-Sept. 11 world: The large-scale, multiple-panel paintings juxtapose a burning Baghdad with a couch full of kittens, and blindfolded hostages with a baseball game.

While Bowen's style does change dramatically over the years, a playful element unites the entire body of work. Astronauts, the Philly Phanatic and Fred Flintstone make appearances, and even the most politically charged pieces avoid being judgmental or harsh. "My work doesn't take things too seriously," says Bowen.