Photograph by Alasdair Watson

about…

rowan is a Scottish artist currently living and working in Glasgow. A 2021 graduate of Glasgow School of Art, they received a BA(hons) in Fine Art with a specialism in Painting and Printmaking and recently completed their MA in Contemporary Art and Archaeology at the University of the Highlands and Islands. Their work is an interdisciplinary approach to art through the methodologies of archaeological thinking. In looking to the past to inform the future they explore folkloric narratives and figures from Scotland, intrigued by the influence of folklore, particularly in relation to discussions and interpretations of the environment and gender.

Working as a studio technician in a ceramics studio in Glasgow their work explores the potential of clay in relation to these lines of thought, thinking about the materials ability to be reworked and remade, and its history within fragments and findings.

“It matters what we use to think other matters with; it matters what stories we tell to tell other stories with; it matters what knots knot knots, what thoughts think thoughts, what descriptions describe descriptions, what ties tie ties. It matters what stories make worlds, what worlds make stories.”

Donna Haraway, Staying with the Trouble, 2016

Photograph by Alasdair Watson

Exhibitions

29th May – 2nd June 2026, Behind Closed Doors, The Q Canvas Collective, NGS, Glasgow

17th-19th May 2025, Third Space, The Q Canvas Collective, NGS, Glasgow

4th - 9th August 2023, The Quarantine Canvas, Stories from Isolation, New Glasgow Society, Glasgow, Scotland

2023 – 2024, Exhibitor, Ormus, Aberdour, Fife, Scotland

2022 - 2023, Exhibitor, Sun Gallery, Newburgh, Fife, Scotland

April 2022, Fragments, the Old Haa, Shetland, Scotland

November 2021, Wunderkammer, Transmission, Glasgow, Scotland

August 2021, The Night Voyage, Online

July 2021, The Aletrnative Degree Show Festival, South Block, Glasgow, Scotland

December 2020, The Scottish Portrait Awards, Online

April 2020, Rabbit Skin, Glue Factory, Glasgow, Scotland

 April 2018 – 2022, Exhibitor, The Shetland Gallery, Shetland, Scotland