CHRIS ROWE

Melbourne Artist Chris Rowe has worked as a professional artist since completing her BA (Fine Arts) at Monash University in 1989. She continues to explore the human condition with the assurance of a mid career artist. Her beautifully composed works are richly nuanced and complex in content, narrative and feeling. Despite a light and sensitive touch, her drawings, mixed media and paintings are moody and often challenging, incorporating several layers of meaning.



Her style has evolved into a refined synthesis of painting, drawing, collage, and text, usually incorporating the figure and landscape. Her unique narrative style was enabled by a steadfast development tangential to the mainstream of postmodern practice. The works can be read as quite personal in content, but our response to the emotional content is universally shared.

Chris’ works are an exploration of psycho-social issues, particularly as they affect women. From the earliest sensuous and visceral oils exploring sexuality, and the bleak classicist post apocalyptic counterpoints, to the award winning mixed media collages investigating romantic ideals, alienation, life and death in the modern relationship, and more recently the languid but conflicted mother and child drawings and paintings, the content and style draw us to contemplate the beauty and pain of life and death.
Chris' life experience, and time spent as a nurse, have brought her into close contact with a wide variety of people and situations. This has fostered an intimacy with the body, stripped to expose the self, vulnerable, subject to notions of loss, anger, bewilderment, discomfort, or disquiet. These qualities fuel the subtext and inform the content and tone of much of her work.



Often a conflagration of limbs appear as naturally as the nude in the interior or landscape. Everyday objects, such as the couch in the landscape, are imbued with symbolic meaning. In other works a feeling of stillness is created within crowded spaces echoing the need for self-assertion in the face of potential alienation and isolation of modern life. The figure contained carries no greater weight than its surroundings, implying an exploration of active desires versus passive acceptance.



Working in a mix of media (oils, inks, charcoal, pastels, acrylic & collage) her work is of the universal personal, an exploration of the psyche.

EDUCATION

1989 BA Fine Arts, Monash University, Melbourne, Vic.



SOLO EXHIBITIONS

2008 Snippets : TILT Contemporary Art, Belgrave, Vic

2005 Precious : TILT Contemporary Art Gallery, Ferntree Gully, Vic

2003 Between : TILT Contemporary Art Gallery, Ferntree Gully, Vic

2003 Travelling : TILT Contemporary Art Gallery, Ferntree Gully, Vic

2001 Shades Of a Soul : Bulle Galleries Flinders St, Melbourne, Vic.



FINALIST IN ART PRIZES AND SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

2008 Williamstown Festival Contemporary Art Prize, Williamstown, Vic

2007 2007 ANL Maritime Art Prize, Docklands, Vic

2007 17 August Caulfield Grammar School, Wheelers hill Campus, Vic

2007 2 August Youth Empowered Against HIV/AIDS (YEAH), Melbourne, Vic

2007 The Cancer Council Victoria Arts Awards, 15W Gallery, Melbourne Vic

2007 6 July – 2 August MARZIART International Gallery, Hamburg, Germany

2007 The Nillumbik Prize, Montsalvat, Vic

2006 Salon de Montsalvat, Landscape Painting & Printmaking, Montsalvat, Vic

2006 The Continental Hotel Summer Exhibition, Sorrento, Vic

2006 Caulfield Grammar 25th Professional Artists Exhibition, Wheelers Hill,Vic

1989 National Student Art Prize: Mitchell University, Bathurst, NSW



COMMISSIONS

2007 Mural, Emergency Department, Sandringham Hospital, Vic



ACQUISITIONS

2005 Ansell Corporation, Richmond, Vic

1994 The Australian Nursing Federation (Vic Branch)



AWARDS

2003 Highly Commended, Acquisitive Landscape Art Prize, Daylesford, Vic

2001 Reproduction of the work (After Burn 2000)

1 Victorian Breast Cancer Research Consortium’s Annual Report’s cover

2 Produced as a banner to advertise 2001 Daffodil Day Awards

3 Is currently on loan to the Anti Cancer Council

1998 Winner (Open Cut 1997) Visual Arts Award Anti Cancer Council,Vic

1994 Highly Commended, VTU Exhibition, Caulfield gallery, Vic





HIGHLIGHTS



The installation of the interactive mural FOUR SEASONS 2007, in the Sandringham Hospital Emergency Department, 193 Bluff Rd, Sandringham during February 2007.



New works exhibited in Hamburg, Germany during July and August 2007.



GROUP EXHIBITIONS

1985-2007 Consistently exhibiting in a variety of group shows throughout Australia.



The following is a selection of earlier exhibitions:



2003 Acquisitive Landscape Art Prize & Exhibition: Pantechnicon Gallery Daylesford

2003 Smorgan Cotemporary Art Prize: Williamstown Festival: Williamstown

2003 Daffodil Day Arts Award 2003: Telstra Exhibition Centre Melbourne

2002 Ergon Energy Central Queensland Art Award 2002 : Rockhampton Art Gallery

2002 Contemporary Art prize : Williamstown Festival : Williamstown

2001 Facing the Challenge : Daffodil Day Art Awards 2001 : Telstra Exhibition Centre.Melbourne

2000 Removing The Mask : Daffodil Day Arts Award 2000: St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne

2000 Swan Hill National Print and Drawing Show : Swan Hill.

2000 Mira Fine Art EAP Flinders St : Melbourne

1999 At The Crossroads : Daffodil Day Arts Award 1999 : St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne

1998 The Journey Within : Daffodil Day Arts Award 1998 : St Paul’s Cathedral Melbourne

1997 Art Working : Working Art Visual Arts Prize: Steps Gallery Carlton

1997 Mixed Platter : Ballarat Fine Art, Warrnambool & Bendigo Regional Galleries

1996 Mixed Platter : Vic Health Access Gallery, National Gallery Victoria

1996 Dominique Segan Drawing Prize : Castlemaine

1995 Spring Festival of Drawing : Mornington Art Prize : Mornington.

1995 Hugh Ramsay Religious Art Award : Essendon.

1994 The Art of Nursing : Steps Gallery. Carlton

1994 Grand Central Gallery : City Art Public Space. Melbourne

1994 VTU Exhibition : Caulfield Arts Complex : Caulfield.

1993 Form Figure Fragment : Caulfield Arts Complex

1993 Swan Hill National Print and Drawing Show : Swan Hill.

1993 Earthworks : Moorabbin Arts Expo : Moorabbin.

1992 VTU Exhibition : Caulfield Arts Complex : Caulfield.

1992 Swan Hill National Print and Drawing Show : Swan Hill.

1991 VTU Exhibition : Caulfield Arts Complex : Caulfield.

1991 Gallery at Tolarno : St Kilda