Serena Rowe

I had always wanted to paint people but when I couldn’t find anyone who would sit for me I started to find things that would : pieces I found around me in my studio, in my grandmothers’ house, in the woods, or brought in by the tide on the shore. My foraging resulted in a cuckoo’s nest of characters. These things - random belongings of humans and nature - have memories, meanings and characters - just as people do. They had their stories to tell as well. And so I began to paint their portraits.
 
My subjects at first glance seem eclectic – an old trunk, a pewter mug, a laughing pig.  What compels me to paint them?
A pile of cutlery from last night’s supper is no longer just a collection of forks and knives but a delicious glinting chaotic mass. By painting it I have not only made sense of their disorder but have recorded the memory of that evening. In paint there is a permanence.

I can be attracted to the colour of a red jug I found in a market and take it back to my studio to paint and only later realise that its’ colour reminded me of a great aunt’s kitchen and the colour of rail tracks in a painting I admired by Soutine. Other objects are more obvious to me in their resonance, such as the bone handled knives which belonged to my Scottish grandmother.
 
I mostly work from life and occasionally from drawings and memory. I always paint with impatience and endaevour to make my brushstrokes as fresh as possible.
TRAINING
2006-2007 - Princes' Drawing School, London. Postgraduate scholarship programme
2001-2003 - Florence Academy of Art, Italy. Classical training in painting and drawing
1996-2000 - Edinburgh University, Scotland. MA degree in English Literature. 2:1
1995-1996 - Chelsea College of Art and Design, London. Foundation Art Course
AWARDS

In 1998 Serena's painting was highly commended in the 'Young Artists' Britain' Award, a national competition as part of the Prince of Wales' 50th birthday celebrations.

In 2004 she was awarded the Royal Glasgow Institute Exhibition prize involving a solo show at the RGI'S Kelly Gallery in Glasgow, Scotland.

She was invited to exhibit at the 2007 Summer Season at Glyndebourne Opera Festival, England.
Serena has exhibited widely throughout the UK including with the NEAC and RGI.
Her paintings are owned in private collections in the UK, USA and Australia.
She is represented in London by Panter and Hall.

In 2007, she had her first London solo exhibition with Panter and Hall in Mayfair