Artist Statement

I use craft to transform the unspeakable. The rhythmic motion of weaving, the razor edge of broken glass softening under the extreme heat of the kiln, the arduous cranking of the printing press — these become something like a choreography, or a trance, where the hands move to channel what language cannot contain. The resulting objects speak viscerally, embodying not just the afterlife of trauma, but also the possibility of care, of defiant pleasure, of undeniable authorship, of new worlds becoming.

This is not just a personal healing journey; I see my practice as a means to confront systems and structures of violence at the intersection of the criminal legal system, State power and the family. I draw on archival material — including court documents, news articles, and family photos— to challenge the official record and create more nuanced narratives that acknowledge complicated, and contradictory truths.

To do this, I must disarm the social stigma that viewers project on my work — queer, victim, inmate, monster. This is one of my greatest fears as an artist: that my work cannot overcome a culture of shame and silence to reach a public audience. My work embraces an abolitionist vision; however, I believe that radical social change must first begin by turning inward, by interrogating ourselves and the limits of our own compassion.

In my work, the physical labor of creation becomes a force of alchemy to process troubling memories and information. Through the tedium of wordless repetition — passing a thousand threads through the heddles of the loom, or watching a crack move along a score-line on glass — the roiling energy of grief and rage transmutes into an uneasy beauty. In the space preceding language, outside of myself and the world, there is finally the freedom to speak. This is what I aim to accomplish as an artist: to share the transformative power of art, particularly its potential to break cycles of intergenerational trauma, disrupt carceral logics of confinement and create the conditions for liberation.

Artist Bio

Rowan Renee (b. 1985, West Palm Beach, Florida) is a genderqueer artist currently working in Brooklyn, NY. Their work addresses intergenerational trauma, gender-based violence and the impact of the criminal legal system through image, text and installation. They have been exhibited in solo exhibitions at Smack Mellon (2021), Five Myles (2021), Aperture Foundation (2017), and Pioneer Works (2015), with reviews in publications including VICE, Huffington Post, Hyperallergic, and The New York Times. They have received awards from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, the Harpo Foundation and the Jerome Hill Foundation, and have been an Artist-in-Residence at the Center for Book Arts, NARS Foundation, Red Bull Arts and the Textile Arts Center. In 2022, they will be the second Artist-in-Residence at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn, NY. Currently, their project Between the Lines, supported by We, Women Photo, runs art workshops by correspondence with LGBTQ+ people currently incarcerated in Florida. Their installation, No Spirit For Me (2019), was included in the critically acclaimed exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood at MoMA PS1.