Rowen Matthews

Rowen’s landscapes are defiantly ambiguous. He enjoys the tension and excitement enacted in his works by engaging in the struggle between a literal and an abstract interpretation of landscape. The presence of the horizon line anchors the work in the genre, but Rowen deliberately uses as few markings as possible to suggest a tree, or the contours of a gorge, or a stormy sky. Rowen builds up the surfaces of his paintings with consecutive layers of paint, applied in his characteristic gestural style, which results in a rich impasto finish in his work.

Reflecting on his practice, Rowen explains:

It’s the love of paint qualities that dominates these images. In these works I’ve questioned our world of substance, the things that move around us. Focusing on abstract qualities I’ve taken figures, landscape, distance, vapour, shadows, perspective, and turned these things, looking for some essential special relationships, into artifacts of paint on a surface.

Encouraged by the success of his sell-out solo show at the New England Regional Art Museum in 2000, and his subsequent inclusion in a survey exhibition of New England artists in 2004, Matthews commenced painting full-time in 2007. He has enjoyed considerable success in the subsequent years, including several solo shows in NSW , and participating in group shows, and art prizes, culminating in his being awarded the prestigious Calleen Art Award in 2009 at the Cowra Regional Art Gallery. Rowen’s work is held in private collections throughout Australia, Germany, Norway, the UK and the USA .

Weatherscapes commences on 6th April and continues to 24th April 2010.