BUTTER 2025 | JUDY BOWMAN

Judy Bowman (Detroit, MI) is a mixed-media collage artist who was born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. Her art practice centers on exalting America’s Black culture. Bowman’s use of vibrant hues, textured paper and acrylic paint illuminates’ narratives that move beyond institutional racism and disparaged perspectives of the Black experience–a view in which America too often limits the full picture. Considering herself a visual griot, she sees her job to tell stories that are reflective of her coming-of-age in Detroit’s Eastside and Black Bottom neighborhoods.
Bowman’s work appears in private and public collections–nationally and internationally–including Institutional Collections of the Sarasota African American Cultural Coalition, Sarasota, Florida; The Free Press building, Detroit, Michigan; R.W. Norton Art Gallery/ Museum, Shreveport, Louisiana; Georgetown University Library, Booth Family For Special Collections, Washington DC, US Department of State, Art Bank Program, Washington, DC; and the Flint Institute of Arts, Flint, Michigan.