SOLO EXHIBITIONS
2025 My Image is a Lens,Island Gallery, New York, NY
2023 The Perimeter Path, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY
2023 That Day, We Looked Happy, String-Room Gallery, Wells College, Aurora, NY.
2022 A Common Thread, Recess, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Airport Beach, Smack Mellon, Brooklyn, NY
2021 That Day, We Looked Happy, Five Myles, Brooklyn, NY
2021 Dead Reckoning, Anchorage Museum of Art, Anchorage, AK
2019 No Honor No Heart, University of Toledo Center for the Visual Arts, Toledo, OH
2018 Z, Saint Joseph’s University, Philadelphia, PA
2017 Bodies of Wood, Aperture Foundation, New York, NY
2016 Bodies of Wood, Peninsula Art Space, Brooklyn, NY
2015 Z, Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation, Brooklyn, NY
2012 On the River, Kesting/Ray Gallery, New York, NY
2012 Dark Corners, Savage Secrets, Weldon Arts, Brooklyn, NY
GROUP EXHIBITIONS (Selected)
2025 Give is also the right to our existence: Collecting and Surfacing Queer Narratives, Penn State University Libraries’ Eberly Family Special Collection Library, University Park, PA
2025 Open Book(s), Mana Contemporary in collaboration with Monira Foundation, Jersey City, NJ
2024 Humilis, Island Gallery, New York, NY
2023 In Retrospect / Bad Mirror, Monira Foundation, Jersey City, NJ and Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York, NY
2023 Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Nicole R. Fleetwood, Schomburg Center for Black Culture, New York, NY
2022 P.A.S – L.E.S., Peninsula Art Space, New York, NY
2022 Unfolding Forms: Multiple Approaches to the Book, organized by the Center for Book Arts, Miriam Gallery, Brooklyn, NY
2022 Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Nicole R. Fleetwood, National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, Cincinnati, OH
2022 Right About Now, curated by Parker Daley, Pen + Brush Gallery, New York, NY
2021 Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Birmingham, AL, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” Curator: Nicole R. Fleetwood
2021 Eastern Connecticut State University, Willimantic, CT, “Artist as Witness,” Curator: Julia Wintner
2021 NARS Foundation, Brooklyn, NY, “Space-honey,” Curator: Elisa Gutierrez Eriksen
2020 MoMA PS1, Long Island City, NY, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” Curator: Nicole R. Fleetwood
2020 Fotografiska, New York, NY, “The Aperture Summer Open: Information,” Curator: Brendan Embser
2020 Textile Arts Center, Brooklyn, NY, “Subtle Speaks”
2020 Pen + Brush Gallery, New York, NY, “The Now”
2019 Tiger Strikes Asteroid, Brooklyn, NY, ”Flat File 2020”
2019 Anchorage Museum of Art, Anchorage, AK, ”What Why How We Eat”
2019 Amos Eno Gallery, Brooklyn, NY, Curator: Lorenzo Triburgo, ”The Social Policing of Gender”
2019 Stamps Gallery, MFA Thesis Exhibition, Ann Arbor, MI, ”No Spirit For Me”
2019 Pen + Brush Gallery, New York, NY, Curator: Alice Gray Stites, ”Furies, Fairies, Visionaries”
2018 Contemporary Art Toledo, Toledo, OH, Curator: Brian Carpenter, ”Pretty Queer”
2017 Human Resources, Los Angeles, CA, Curator: Anna Ialeggio, ”drivers, impulsers”
2016 Texas Contemporary Art Fair, Houston, TX, Art Fair, Booth: Walker Waugh Art
2013 The Bronx Museum of the Arts, Bronx, NY, Curator: Gabriel de Guzman, “Bronx Calling” 2012 The McColl Center for Visual Art, Charlotte, NC, “America Now”
2012 Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston, Curator: Mikhael Tara Garver, “Experiment America”
2011 The Philadelphia Art Alliance, Philadelphia, PA, Curator: Melissa Caldwell, “Let Me Tell You About A Dream I Had”
ARTIST’S WRITINGS
Renee, Rowan. “Letter Pictures,” That’s a Pretty Thing to Call It: Prose and Poetry by Artists Teaching in Carceral Institutions, ed. Leigh Sugar, New Village Press, New York, 2023. pp. 61-67.
Renee, Rowan.“Our Postal Roads,” Up River Syllabus, ed. Sofia D’Amico, 2022. pp 56-67.
Aperture, Rowan Renee, “Desire and Loss, from Stonewall to the AIDS Crisis,” 06.25.2019.
Aperture, Rowan Renee and Arno Mokros, “Queer Looking, Queer Being,” 05.18.2018.
Guernica, Rowan Renee, Lois Braverman, and Mila Zuo, “Interrogating the Limits of Trauma Language,” 07.01.2017.
Luna Luna Magazine, Rowan Renee, “Bodies of Wood: A Legacy of Sexual Abuse,” 12.22.2015.
GRANTS/AWARDS
2025 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant
2025 Socrates Sculpture Park Fellowship
2024 NYFA Artist Fellowship in Interdisciplinary Work
2023 Art for Justice Fund Artist Fellowship
2023 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Alternate)
2023 NYSCA Support for Artists Grant
2023 NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture (Finalist)
2022 Ruth and Harold Chenven Foundation Grant
2022 Magnum Foundation Counter-Histories Fellowship (Shortlist)
2021 City Artist Corps Grant
2021 Foundation for Contemporary Arts Emergency Grant
2021 Brooklyn Arts Council Grant
2021 Jerome Hill Artist Fellowship (Finalist)
2020 NYFA Artist Fellowship in Craft/Sculpture (Finalist)
2020 Harpo Foundation Grant for Visual Artists
2020 Red Bull Arts Detroit Artist-in-Residence
2019 We, Women Photography and Community Engagement Grant
2019 University of Michigan Jean Paul Slusser MFA Thesis Award
2019 College Art AssociationProfessional Development Fellowship in Visual Arts (Honorable Mention)
2018 Best in Show: “Fluid Perspectives” Juried Exhibition, Juror: Arnold Tunstall
2018 University of Michigan Elsie Choy Lee Scholar
2018 University of Michigan International Institute Student Fellowship
2018 University of Michigan CEW Riecker Graduate Student Research Grant
2018 University of Michigan Arts Integration Interdisciplinary Research Grant
2017 University of Michigan Smucker-Wagstaff Project Scholarship
2017 University of Michigan Rackham Masters Award
2016 Pride Photo Award: First Place, Open Category
2016 Rasmuson Artist Fellowship Program at Anchorage Museum of Art
2016 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Community Engagement Grant
2016 Ossian Arts Fellowship (Jain Family Institute)
2015 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Emerging Artist Grant (Nominee)
2015 Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Artist Fellowship
2010 Money for Women/Barbara Deming Memorial Fund
2010 PEW Center for Arts and Heritage: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Project Grant
2009 PEW Center for Arts and Heritage: Philadelphia Exhibitions Initiative Discovery Grant
COLLECTIONS
Ackerman Institute for the Family
Bainbridge Island Museum of Art, Cynthia Sears Artist Book Collection
Brown University, John Hay Library
Center for Book Arts
Center for Creative Photography, University of Arizona, Tucson
Center for Curatorial Studies at Bard College Library
Harvard University, Fine Arts Library
Metropolitan Museum of Art, Watson Library
Mount Holyoke College Art Museum
New York University Library
University of California: Irvine Library
University of Connecticut, Homer Babbidge Library
University of Iowa Library
University of Miami Library
University of Michigan Library
Pennsylvania State University, Special Collections Library
Princeton University, Firestone Library
Smith College, Neilson Library
Swarthmore College, McCabe Library
The New School Library
Tufts University, SMFA Library
Ringling School of Art and Design, Alfred R. Goldstein Library
Washington University in St. Louis, Holly Hall Book Arts Collection
Yale University, Haas Fine Arts Library
RESIDENCIES
2025 Two Trees CSSP Program, 3-Years, Brooklyn, NY
2024 Silver Art Projects, 1-Year, New York, NY
2022 Green-Wood Cemetery, Artist-in-Residence, 1-Year Residency, Brooklyn, NY.
2022 Monira Foundation, Artist-in-Residence, 1-Year Residency, Jersey City, NJ. *Deferred
2021 Center for Book Arts, Artist-in-Residence, 1-Year Residency, New York, NY.
2021 NARS Foundation, Artist-in-Residence, 3-Month Residency, Brooklyn, NY.
2020 Red Bull Arts Detroit, Artist-in-Residence, 2-Month Residency, Detroit, MI. *Postponed
2019 Textile Arts Center, Artist-in-Residence, 9-Month Residency, Brooklyn, NY.
2016 Anchorage Museum of Art, Rasmuson Fellow, 2-Month Residency, Anchorage, AK.
2015 Pioneer Works Center for Art and Innovation, Artist in Residence, 2-Year Residency, Brooklyn, NY.
2015 Varda Artist Residency, Artist in Residence, 1-Month Residency, Sausalito, CA.
2013 The Bronx Museum for the Arts, Artist in the Marketplace Program, 4-Month Professional
Development Residency, Bronx, NY.
2013 Taliesin, Artist in Residence at The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, 1-Month Residency,
Scottsdale, AZ.
2013 Franconia Sculpture Park , Jerome Fellow, 1-Month Residency, Franconia, MN.
2013 Art Farm, Artist in Residence, 2-Month Residency, Marquette, NE.
2012 McColl Center for Visual Art, Artist in Residence, 1-Month Residency, Charlotte, NC.
2012 The Camera Club of New York, Honorable Mention, 1-Month Darkroom Residency, New York, NY.
SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY & PRESS
Review Volk, Gregory. “Rowan Renee unearths Green-Wood Cemetery’s forgotten lives,” Hyperallergic, August 28, 2023.
Review Barron, James. “You didn’t have to be famous to be buried at Green-Wood,” The New York Times, July 13, 2023.
Preview Pontone, Maya. “30 Art Shows To See in New York This Summer,” Hyperallergic, June 14, 2023.
Preview Anania, Billie “Your Concise New York Art Guide for August 2022,” Hyperallergic, August 1, 2022.
Print Feature & Cover Story Holmbäck, Christopher. “Hur får vi bort vi problemen med sexuella övergrepp? Här är alternativen till rättssamhällets lösningar.” ETC, Sweden, March 7, 2022.
Review T Art Magazine, Adrianna Brusie, “Transformations of the Invisible: Nicole Fleetwood’s Marking Time,” 06.08.2021.
Review The New York Times, Holland Cotter, “Five Gallery Shows to See Right Now,” 05.20.2021.
Preview Hyperallergic, Dessane Lopez Cassell and Cassie Packard, “Your Concise New York Art Guide for May 2021,” 05.04.2021.
Interview Aperture, Jessica Lynne, “Can Photographs Heal When the Carceral State Fails?,” 01.28.2021.
Review The New Yorker, Andrea K. Scott, “The Best Art of 2020,” 12.30.2020
Review Hyperallergic, Dessane Lopez Cassell, “2020: A Year in New York Exhibitions and More,” 12.30.2020
Review The New York Times, Holland Cotter, Roberta Smith and Jason Farago “The Most Important Moments in Art in 2020” 12.04.2020
Podcast MoMA Magazine, Dr. Nicole Fleetwood, Isabel Custudio, Hanna Girma, “The Voices of MarkingTime,” 11.16.2020
Review The New York Times, Holland Cotter, “Making Art When ‘Lockdown’ Means Prison,” 09.24.2020
Review The New Yorker, Johanna Fateman, “Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration,” 10.26.2020
Review The Cut, Cassidy George, “MoMA PS1 Reopens to the Public with ‘Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration’,” 09.21.2020
Book Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Nicole R. Fleetwood. Harvard University Press: Cambridge, MA: 2020, p. 262.
Slideshow The Guardian, “We, Women: the platform staging a ‘visual rebellion’ – in pictures,” 01.22.2020.
Feature Huffington Post, Priscilla Frank, “Nude Self-Portraits Trace A Journey To Reclaim Pleasure
After Sexual Assault,” 05.27.2017.
Interview Aperture, Chris Boot, “Rowan Renee’s Defiant Pictures of Trauma,” 05.15.2017.
Preview NBC Out, Catherine Chapman, “International Photo Contest Highlights LGBTQ Diversity,” 10.14.2016.
Feature: Print Newsweek Japan, “Picture Power: Sexual and Gender Diversity,” 08.30.2016.
Review Hyperallergic, Kristin Sancken, “The Disconcerting Beauty of an Artist’s Nude Self-Portraits,” 05.12.2016.
Interview American Photo Magazine, Lindsay Comstock, “Rowan Renee Examines Abuse and Gender Identity,” 05.04.2016.
Review Guernica, Gillie Collins, “The Unspeakable: How Photographer Rowan Renee Transforms the Deeply Personal Past,” 05.02.2016.
Preview American Photo Magazine, Lindsay Comstock, “The 10 Best New Photography Exhibits of Spring 2016,” 03.22.2016.
Book Eleven Spring: A Celebration of Street Art. Sara and Marc Schiller. Wooster Editions: NY, 2016.
Review Hyperallergic, Arnav Adhikari, “Queering Contemporary Portraiture With 19th Century Photo Techniques,” 07.10.2015.
Feature The Wild Magazine, Nicole Zane, “Robyn Hasty Challenges Perspectives On Gender And Body,” 06.24.2015.
Preview American Photo Magazine,Lindsay Comstock, “The 10 Best New Photography Exhibits of Summer 2015,” 06.22.2015.
Review Huffington Post, Priscilla Frank, “Tintype Portraits Of Genderqueer Individuals Are The Art works Of Our Future,” 06.15.2015.
Review VICE, Matthew Leifheit, “Gender Is Eternally Fluid in These Vintage-Looking Nude Portraits,” 06.11.2015.
Preview Paper Magazine, Gary Pini, “The 11 Art Openings to See This Week,” 06.10.2015.
Review Bedford and Bowery, Nicole Disser, “This Photo Show Marks a High Point for the Transgender Movement,” 06.08.2015.
Feature Wall Street Journal,Emily Nonko, “Rockaway Arts Center Now Has a Location,” 12.09.2014.
TV NY1 News, Clodagh McGowan, “Artist Hopes to Bring Art Center to Rockaway Park,” 11.25.2014.
Feature: Arts The New York Times, Colin Moynihan, “Memorializing Traffic Deaths with an Artist’s Touch,” 08.04.2014.
Radio Clocktower Radio, David Weinstein, “Robyn Hasty, Tintype Project,” 06.04.2014.
Book We Own The Night: The Art of The Underbelly Project. Workhorse and PAC. Rizzoli: NY, 2012.
Catalog The Miss Rockaway Armada: Let Me Tell You About A Dream I Had. Philadelphia Art Alliance: PA, 2012.
Feature: Print Style & The Family Tunes (Germany), Isabel Kirsch, “Robyn Hasty’s Intimate View of a Different America,” 08.01.2011.
Radio Feature American Public Media: Marketplace, Tess Vigeland, “People Engaging with Economic Collapse,” 06.09.2011.
Feature NPR: The Picture Show, Claire O’Neill, “Photographer Goes Off-Grid With An Antique Camera,” 04.25.2011.
Feature The Wall Street Journal, Benjamin Norman, “Brooklyn Sidewalk Provides Canvas for Art Festival,” 09.23.2010.
BookStreet Art New York. Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo. Prestel Publishing: Munich, 2010.
Feature Juxtapoz, Cheree Franco, “Armsrock and Imminent Disaster: Refuge,” Issue #110.
Feature: News St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Shane Graber, “This River Ride is a Trip,” 09.07.2007.
Review The Brooklyn Paper, Ariella Cohen, “History on Display on Columbia Street,” 04.07.2007.
Feature: Arts The New York Times, Allen Brisson-Smith, “Art Down the Mississippi: At Least That’s The Plan,” 8.09.2006.
PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS & PANELS
“Art of the Unspeakable: Transformative Justice at the Intersection of Sexual Harm and the Criminalization of Queerness,” conference presentation, Abolish THIS! Queer and Trans* Voices of Abolition, College Art Association Annual Conference, Chicago, IL. February 15, 2024.
“Speaking through the Hands: Craft as Transformative Justice,” artist talk, Art Now! Lecture Series, Film Row Cinema, Columbia College, Chicago, IL. February 14, 2024.
“To the Perimeter: A Walking Tour with Rowan Renee,” artist-led tour of the exhibition and grounds focusing on race and class disparities in burial, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY. September 3, 2023.
“The Poetic Line,” public program and poetry reading by Ama Codjoe. Broadside design for featured poem “Cotton Candy on a Rainy Day” by Rowan Renee. Guggenheim Museum, New York, NY. August 5, 2023.
“To the Perimeter: A Walking Tour with Rowan Renee,” artist-led tour of the exhibition and grounds focusing on race and class disparities in burial, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY. July 23, 2023.
“Art and Preservation,” artist talk with Rowan Renee and Neela Wickremesinghe, Green-Wood’s Robert A. and Elizabeth Rohn Jeffe Director of Restoration and Preservation, Modern Chapel, Green-Wood Cemetery, Brooklyn, NY. July 10, 2023.
Artist Talk: That Day, We Looked Happy, String-Room Gallery, Wells College, Aurora, NY. February 23, 2023.
“Conversations with Transformative Justice Practitioners Series: Rowan Renee and Alex Anderson,”virtual program,Recess Art, Brooklyn, NY, January 14, 2022.
Artist Talk, virtual, Post-Baccalaureate Program, School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Tufts University, Boston, MA, 2022.
Panel Colby Center for the Arts and Humanities, Freedom & Captivity: Visualizing Incarceration, Panelists: Sean Kelley, Brett Story and Rowan Renee, virtual, October 25, 2021.
Panel Abroms-Engel Institute for the Visual Arts, Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, Panelists: Maria Gaspar, George Anthony Morton, Tameca Cole, Dean Gillespie and Rowan Renee, moderated by Dr. Nicole Fleetwood, Birmingham, AL, September 17, 2021.
Artist Talk Textile Arts Center, Textile Hour Series, Brooklyn, NY, March 10, 2021.
Panel MoMA, Chosen Family, Panelists: Mary Enoch Elizabeth Baxter, Russell Craig, James Hough and Rowan Renee, New York, NY, February 18, 2021.
Workshop Artistic Noise with MoMA, Self-Portraiture, Representation and Empowerment, New York, NY, March 26, 2021.
Workshop Visual AIDS with MoMA PS1, Visual Storytelling through Grief, Office Hours, Brooklyn, NY, February 17, 2021.
Artist Talk University of Maine, Intermedia MFA Department, February 16, 2021.
Conference Presentation,a2ru: Alliance for the Arts in Research Universities, Love Letters: Violence, Counter-Narrative and the Aesthetics of Repair in Archival Texts. University of Georgia, 2018.
Artist Talk, Saint Joseph’s University,Philadelphia, PA, 2018.
Panel, Aperture Foundation, Questioning Cultural Narratives of Gender-based Violence and Victimhood. Panelists: Lois Braverman (Ackerman Institute for the Family), Rowan Renee, and Mila Zuo (Oregon State University). New York, NY, 2017.
Conference, ASAP/9: The Arts of the Present. Bodies of Wood Oakland, CA. 2017.
EDUCATION
2024 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Madison, ME
2017-2019 MFA, Studio Art. University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
2003-2007 BFA, Integrated Design Curriculum. Graduated with Institutional and Departmental Honors. Parsons the New School for Design, New York, NY