Gary In the studio

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Gary R Bowling is an oil painter whose work mainly delves into his fascination with place and landscape. Both Gary and his wife, Linda, are artists living in Lamar, Missouri—a small town south of Kansas City near the Kansas border. Gary’s main studio is based there, and his paintings are exhibited by six fine art galleries throughout the Midwest. Although he no longer inventories his art regularly with other dealers, he continues to collaborate with galleries across the United States. His work is included in private, public, and corporate collections across the United States and Canada, as well as in Asia and Europe.

Born and raised in Lamar, Gary originally considered architecture and engineering but developed a passion for visual arts during his time at Missouri Southern State College. He taught art in Independence, Kansas for two years before pursuing graduate studies, earning an MFA in painting and drawing from the University of Arkansas in 1974. During graduate school, he researched viewer participation as a significant mechanism for enhancing art experiences, and this concept still influences his artwork.

After completing his MFA, Gary joined the painting and drawing faculty at the University of Arkansas before accepting a teaching position at Westmar College in LeMars, Iowa. He chaired the Art Department at Westmar for nine years. Reflecting on his time there, Gary notes that teaching limited his time outdoors, which made opportunities to reconnect with nature precious—rekindling his interest in landscape painting. His artistic focus shifted toward light, atmosphere, and landscapes experienced from highways, especially features marking boundaries between public and private spaces.

In 1981, Gary took a sabbatical from Westmar and spent the fall at Yaddo, an artist’s colony in Saratoga Springs, New York. This experience helped him refine his interests in landscape painting, inspiring his current work around themes of sense of place and moment, and their transformative effect on people. A year after Yaddo, he left Westmar to pursue painting full-time and returned to Lamar.

Linda has always played a vital role in their art business and studio life. After retiring as an elementary art teacher, she focused on managing their studios and business logistics, while also continuing her own artistic practice. Their art is distinct from each other’s, yet they collaborate closely in both studio work and creative development.

Their adult children remain engaged and supportive of the family art business, pursuing careers in design, visual arts, and visual cognition. Gary admits to being compulsively dedicated to studio work but also values travel and time spent with family and friends, which provides fresh inspiration for his art. He humorously notes that too much time away from the studio makes him irritable though.