Brenda Rowe
BIO
Brenda Rowe is an award-winning artist, advocate, teacher and mentor. Brenda is renowned in her home province and beyond for her finely tuned painting skills, picturesque works, and energetic efforts as a champion for the arts. Brenda’s diverse portfolio of artwork has been featured in solo and group exhibitions, and has been recognized with awards from the arts community. She is represented by a number of art galleries and her pieces are proudly displayed in private collections throughout Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada and around the World. With a teaching certificate from Memorial University in hand, Brenda diligently passes on her skills to aspiring artists and amateur groups alike, through her fun, creative and collaborative workshops. She has over 20 years of art instruction experience, bringing innovation and energy to the workshops her students eagerly attend. She paints and teaches from her studio in Torbay, Newfoundland
ARTIST STATEMENT
There’s always more than meets the eye. I caught on to this concept through early fascination with close detail. At first glance, finer details often go unnoticed by casual observers, but my keen eye locked onto the smaller things. Upon discovery, these intricate compositions became the subject for a vast number of my portfolio pieces. It was a natural inclination to pursue biology, and with the completion of my Masters in Science in 1997. The combination of biology and art was a successful pairing. I could observe detail and paint it. A body of work emerged that focused on the macro view of subjects – MACROWE by Brenda Rowe. I would zoom in on specific areas of interest within the subject knowing I could translate these areas into compositions on larger canvases using paint. This process of enlarging smaller parts of subject allows for a new interpretation of subject that would be otherwise hidden from the viewer’s eye. Often, my work cannot be contained by conventional scale. There’s a pleasant play on canvas sizes – sometimes a small flower or candy blown up to disproportionate scale on larger canvases, while larger scenes may be shrunk to be suspended in smaller frames. My intent is for the viewer to experience subjects through my eyes, whether it is a detailed, cropped perspective of an everyday or common subject, or an image that displays two varied views in different lighting conditions. The macro views and image duality in my work is calculated. I am often looking for avenues of the unexpected. An ironic twist to images or things you might expect. I want to provoke a viewer to new and perhaps unexplored territories.