I segreti dell'anima.

This exhibition developed from research into the limits of form, where gesture and experienced space can become visible, employing casting techniques begun in 2004 at The Glass Centre, Sunderland and Middlesex University, where Cowan first experimented with glass casting processes.
Erica Fiorentini Arte Contemporanea, Rome, invited Cowan to prepare a solo exhibition in their international artists programme. The 3-month exhibition I segreti dell'animal displayed new sculptures and photographs alongside previously exhibited work in a Cowan/Fiorentini collaboration, whose focus was the gestural body.
The sculpture 'Myself as a Tree' comprised a glass cast of the trace of an actual arm moving repetitively through wet clay - a material representation of movement as physical form. Another work â Water Portraits presented a series of photographs recording the movement of water as a hand-held camera followed the rise and fall of a boat's prow cutting through waves. Further works investigated the representation of performative gestures. Concepts of ritual and gesture, temporality and memory drawn from Deleuze and Agamben provided the theoretical underpinning of the practice. Research into the materialization of ephemeral forces was first developed during a study trip to Walter de Maria's Lightning Field, and inhabiting a deserted island in the Outer Hebrides for eight consecutive summers. The accompanying catalogue included excerpts from discussions between the artist and Jean Fisher (RA2) and Simonetta Lux, with an introduction by Erica Fiorentini.
There were 13 exhibition reviews in Italian newspapers/on-line journals.