ARTIST ROWAN ROSIE
Rowan Rosie (1994), is an artist currently living and working in Glasgow. Her work centres around painting bright colourful abstracts that evoke memories of special moments and places in life.
Your greatest inspirations or influences?
Travelling, latin dancing, languages, connections with people,
cowgirls, sunshine, vibrant cities, beaches…
Dolly Parton (musically, aesthetically + energetically)
Alicia Keys albums, Hiba Schahbaz, Richard Diebenkorn.
Tell us a bit about your creative process?
When painting I like to create a sense of space and felt experience, often inspired by travelling, expansive experiences and memories attached to these places and the people encountered.
I always spend time working in my sketchbooks etc to develop my ideas before starting final paintings. My paintings all come from my imagination but I do like to take elements of perhaps journeys / buildings / shapes / colours etc from photos and sketches etc and weave them through my work. I work on many pieces at once and finish them all up at the end.
Painting is very absorbing for me and I feel I’m creating worlds that evoke memories of places I’ve perhaps been or special moments in life where I’ve felt a certain way. I love to create feeling and tap into these moments that are relatable to us all or hopefully feel exciting and inspiring to spend time in front of.
How has this year changed your creativity or how you see the world changing moving forward?
For the first time in my life my art was the only thing I had to focus on and it’s what got me through the pandemic. It was also hugely beneficial in many ways to my career as it was a pause in time to say ‘where do I want to go?’ and ‘let’s make some actionable plans to set the wheels in motion to get there’. I have become much more focused on my art and am spreading myself less thin across all my different interests. I have found the pandemic hard though like most people, but artistically there were silver linings.
Who do you consider to be an icon of our time?
Dolly Parton all the way. Needs no further explanation (!) A true artist and icon in all ways.
Do you think the art world needs to change, and if so how do you feel it can improve?
Yes in some ways, it needs to become more accessible and approachable to all different people around world. for one thing, I find overly heavy ‘art speak’ very hard to understand myself so no doubt others will too.
What does wellbeing mean to you?
Feeling free, connected, happy and excited about life every day.
