Come strain your eyes with J Powers Bowman’s intricate imaginary worlds

Date
22 January 2013

They’ll strain your eyes and give you sea sickness, but J Powers Bowman’s imaginary worlds are completely worth it. Illustrating endless variations on hatching and stippling, the elusive Californian’s extraordinarily intricate drawings of utopian cityscapes, seascapes and landscapes seem to be built up freehand from what look like a million black and white patterns.

Obsessively composed and exhaustively detailed, these beautiful fantasies feature steamships, solar panels, medieval windmills, doric columns, space rockets, satellite dishes, oriental huts, stray cogs and squally seas circling concrete tower blocks. Coupled with such wonderfully evocative titles as Atoll, Islet, Fleet, Flight Deck and Palm, these drawings really do have the power to transport you to a world you never imagined.

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J Powers Bowman: Bay

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J Powers Bowman: Columns

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J Powers Bowman: Cruise Ship

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J Powers Bowman: Development

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J Powers Bowman: Fence

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J Powers Bowman: Fleet

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J Powers Bowman: Fleet detail

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J Powers Bowman: Flight Deck

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J Powers Bowman: Palm

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J Powers Bowman: Staircases

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J Powers Bowman: Shelves

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About the Author

Anna Trench

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