Event date: 21 March 2023
Review by Danusia Wurm
“The objects that I deploy in my artwork remain constant and have appeared repeatedly over the years, each time in a new guise, sometimes as metaphor and sometimes as themselves”
Exceeding Limits of the Box, Carl Rowe
What influences an artist's work? The audience at The Blake Studio were treated to a fascinating insight by Norwich-based artist and academic Carl Rowe whose work, over the years, has consistently featured cans, sticks, pipes, food, dust and traps "like the most reliable actors in a repertory theatre group".
Graduating with a MA in Fine Art from Manchester Polytechnic in 1985, and a former Associate Professor and Course Leader in Fine Art at Norwich University of the Arts, Rowe creates paintings, prints, drawings and objects. He describes his art as switching back and forth between an engagement with socio political issues and subconscious renderings. "Despite this seemingly disparate approach, the objects that I deploy in my artwork remain constant and have appeared repeatedly over the years, each time in a new guise, sometimes as metaphor and sometimes as themselves". As such, they might be described as "hero" objects.
Rowe often uses a surface layer of humour, absurdity and the arcane to mask a strong undercurrent of concern for humanity. A memorable example is Banquet for Ultra Bankruptcy, (2013) based on the Marinetti manifesto and, Synaesthesia /3 developed in collaboration with Simon Davenport for Art Laboratory Berlin, where the two artists combined the performative with artistic research on a cultural history of the senses.
Rowe explained that more recent works wrangle subjects such as gases, particulates, pollen, eels, traps, calibrations, marker points, fonts, logos and domestic objects within seemingly nonsensical and vexing associations. At times, geometric forms, lines, and shapes intersect or abut exactly. Elsewhere, they misalign, glance or overlap. Real space coexists with imaginary space in an implausible graphic paradigm. There is a strong sense of duality and unseen forces at play. Colour is notable, in some works naturalistic and low key, but in others it is ramped-up to a feverish vibrancy.
Rowe has an international profile as both an artist and an academic. He is an artist member and studio holder at OUTPOST in Norwich and member of the Printmakers Council. His work has been exhibited widely in the UK as well as in Germany, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, Italy, Canada, US, Estonia, Japan, Malaysia and Egypt. In addition to studio production he has also worked on public art including billboards, print portfolios and hospital art including work for Woodlands Mental Health Unit at Ipswich Hospital and Northside House Forensic Mental Health Unit.
Carl Rowe
Review by ncas trustee Danusia Wurm