ABOUT THE ARTIST
About Colin
Painter, draughtsman and occasional sculptor, working from home in Mildura since the 1970s. This is the story behind the work.
COLIN ROWE
Painting and drawing since he was sixteen
Colin Rowe was born in Hampshire, England, in 1953 and immigrated to Australia in 1971. Before settling into art as his focus, he held a range of jobs, including making chandeliers, delivering rental televisions, and driving taxis.
He studied at art college and at Melbourne University, where alongside painting and drawing he explored photography, philosophy and jewellery-making. In 1977 he completed his formal art training at the Preston Institute of Technology under David Tolley (audio), Dom De Clario (conceptualism), Dale Hickey (hard-edge painting) and Peter Booth (expressionism).
IN COLIN'S WORDS
“My work spans Romantic, Realist, Surreal and Colour Field styles. I draw on the things around me that fit a certain feeling: something noticed on a walk, in an object or a person, or through quieter sources like a sound or a dream.”
His practice covers painting, drawing and sculpture incorporating collected materials. He finds making artwork irresistible: it's the looking, the listening, and the producing of the work that matters as much as the finished piece.
A WORKING LIFE IN ART
Biography
His first teaching post took him to Murrayville, where the surrounding desert country inspired a series of desert-themed drawings. Several of these were given as gifts to departing colleagues over the years and are still in circulation locally today.
In 1980 Colin earned a Bachelor of Education in Art from Melbourne Teachers College, and continued to work as a taxi driver and art educator alongside his practice in the years that followed.
Colin has since retired from formal teaching, though he still paints informally alongside friends and continues to work from his home studio in Mildura.
Across five decades, the throughline in Colin's work has stayed the same: art built from close attention to the world around him, and a genuine reluctance to stop making it.
EXHIBITION HISTORY
Where his work has been shown
1991–2002
Multiple exhibitions, Mildura Art Gallery.
1996
Greenhill Galleries, Adelaide.
1997
Gallery 445, Melbourne.
2000
Swan Hill Art Gallery.
2006
Launched a virtual gallery.
2009–2013
Various institutional exhibitions, including the Art and Science Show and the Rick Amor Drawing Prize.
More recently
A portrait of the late Denis Ryan, painted as an entry for the 2019 Archibald Prize, was donated to the Mildura Arts Centre, where it is now held in the collection and displayed on occasion.
RECOGNITION & PROVENANCE
The Denis Ryan portrait, and what comes with every original
Colin's portrait of Denis Ryan, a well-known local former detective and the author of The Unholy Trinity, was painted as an entry for the 2019 Archibald Prize. It wasn't selected, but it earned coverage in the local newspaper and generated positive local attention. The portrait's size made it impractical to keep at home, so it was donated to the Mildura Arts Centre, where it's displayed from time to time.
Every original work Colin sells also comes packaged in a wooden crate with a signed certificate of provenance: the buyer's name, the purchase price, the date, a photo of the piece, the medium, its exhibition history where relevant, and a short account of why it was made. It's a permanent record that travels with the work, and the kind of detail collectors ask for and rarely get elsewhere.
GET IN TOUCH
See the work, or start a conversation
Colin's originals are available to view and purchase through Blue Thumb Gallery, or you're welcome to enquire directly.