Born: November 22nd, 1945Died: February 1st, 2026<\/p>\n
Christine Bowen, who has died aged 80, was an artist<\/a> whose use of vibrant colours and naturalistic themes won her many admirers throughout Ireland<\/a>. She had a pronounced zest for life and a creative energy that found expression through her art.<\/p>\n A free spirit and passionate, her intense personality and enthusiasm for art inspired others. <\/p>\n For many years, she owned and ran her own gallery in Kenmare<\/a>, Co Kerry, but she exhibited extensively, in Ireland and internationally, and sold well. Exhibitions included at the Royal Ulster Academy, galleries in France, Croatia and Malta, and solo exhibitions in Bath, Belfast and Dublin.<\/p>\n She received numerous commissions, including from the Royal Irish Academy.<\/p>\n Her work can be found among the public collections of several State or semi-State bodies, including the Department of the Environment of Northern Ireland, Northern Ireland Electricity, Ulster Television, Allied Irish Banks, the Office of Public Works and the Department of the Taoiseach. Commissioned works also grace the Europa Hotel in Belfast and Sheen Falls Lodge in her adopted Co Kerry. <\/p>\n She was heavily influenced by childhood memories from Africa and the scenery around Kenmare, where she lived for many years.<\/p>\n Dr Frances Ruane, honorary member of the Royal Hibernian Academy, critiqued her work in 2013 as having a style that is \u201cimmediately recognisable \u2013 a unique and original voice\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat sets her apart from so many other artists who are drawn to this area is her resistance to cliche,\u201d she wrote. \u201cShe avoids the panoramic landscape, preferring to distil a \u2018sense of place\u2019 by focusing on more intimate subjects \u2013 a swarm of bees, a stray sheep, the glimmer of fish below the surface of the water, treating these with refreshing originality.\u201d<\/p>\n Christine Bowen was born in Cheshire, in England. l. Her father, Clifford Bowen, was a former soldier who worked as a customs official for Elder Dempster, at the time one of the UK\u2019s largest shipping companies and which specialised in trade between Liverpool and west Africa. Her mother was Claire Hughes, who grew up in Eaton Square, Rathgar.<\/p>\n As a consequence of her father being posted to Lagos and Port Harcourt in Nigeria, Christine spent almost all of the first seven years of her life in west Africa, with holiday breaksin the African tropics or Dublin. Her early years in west Africa, where she was surrounded by tropical nature\u2019s vivid colours and exotic wildlife (including a pet baboon named Nasser) and witness to glamorous parties, had a big impact on her future life and art.<\/p>\n This somewhat expatriate, postcolonial lifestyle saw her dispatched aged seven back to England where she attended Upton Hall, a Catholic grammar school for girls in Birkenhead run by the Faithful Companions of Jesus order, of which she had fond memories. <\/p>\n She found the nuns to be \u201ckind and interesting people, who encouraged creativity in their students\u201d, according to her daughter, Caroline Davin-Power. \u201cShe just loved the nuns. She died her hair purple when she was a teenager and they didn\u2019t bat an eyelid.\u201d<\/p>\n After Upton, she spent some time in London but more significantly was sent to finishing school in France where, according to family lore, her main achievements were discovering French men and cigarettes, both of which she liked.<\/p>\n When her parents returned to Ireland, Christine came too \u2013 they to Sligo (where they ran a pub) and she, eventually, to Dublin. Her first significant employment was as a colour consultant to paint manufacturer Harrington and Goodlass Wall (HGW), helping to select complementary colours for large commercial spaces and churches.<\/p>\n She was responsible for the huge oil storage tanks in Cobh harbour being repainted in pastel shades, as opposed to the traditional dark silver, which was controversial at the time. Another major client was the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum.<\/p>\n Around 1977, she met the journalist David Davin-Power, then on the cusp of a successful broadcasting career with RT\u00c9. They married and had three children \u2013 a son, Nicholas, and two daughters, Caroline and Julia-Daisy. However, they separated in the 1980s and Bowen returned to Sligo with the children.<\/p>\n There, she devoted herself to her art and attended Sligo Regional Technical College as a mature student, studying fine art under the tutelage of Se\u00e1n McSweeney and Nuala Maloney. When Davin-Power was posted to Belfast in the early 1990s, Bowen moved there too, living separately but sufficiently near for the children to know both their parents.<\/p>\n