Mary Gwyn Bowen is an artist, registered nurse and art educator. In her art, she focuses on the beauty and color of nature. Whether it is the magic of the flowers remembered from her grandmother's gardens, birds identified from memories of walks with her great aunt or the mystery of Reelfoot Lake's unique earthquake formation, nature provides a wealth of inspiration for her art. Botanical painting is a favorite subject Mary Gwyn loves to teach. As a registered nurse, she researches and teaches about art’s role in healthcare.
Mary Gwyn obtained a degree in nursing from Excelsior College, Albany, NY and a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors at the Corcoran College of Art and Design in Washington, D.C. She has a Master of Arts in Art Education from the University of Florida, Gainesville, FL and has attended the University of Florida's Arts in Medicine (AIM) Intensive. She is a member of the American Society ofBotanical Artists (ASBA), the Society of Clinical Research Associates (SoCRA), the National Art Education Association (NAEA).
She received the Cecil Wallace Fordham Award for the Visual Arts in Dallas, Texas. Mary Gwyn is a former fellow in the Evidence Based Nursing Practice Fellowship at Vanderbilt University Medical Center where she completed a research project using art in the cardiac rehabilitation process. The Art to Heart Research Project was published in MEDSURG Nursing, a journal of the Society of Medical Surgical Nurses in the September/October 2015 issue. She has presented a poster of the Artto HeartResearch Project at Nursing Research Day at Vanderbilt University Medical Center, at the Tennessee Hospital Association's annual conference, and to the University Hospital Consortium annual conference, 2014 in Atlanta, GA. She teaches Botanical Watercolor Painting and a workshop, Artists in Healthcare, at Watkins College of Art, Design and Film in Nashville, TN. Her art has shown in festivals, galleries, and is in private collections.
A native Tennessean, originally from Dyersburg in West Tennessee, Mary Gwyn now makes her home just outside of Nashville.