Anika Rowe is a painter and textile artist whose work explores memory, symbolism, and the intersection of internal and external landscapes. Working primarily in oil on linen and hand-dyed natural fibers, she creates figurative compositions that blend contemporary sensibilities with traditional techniques.
Rowe received her MFA in Painting from the Rhode Island School of Design and her BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. Her work has been exhibited in galleries across the United States, including solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Center in Cincinnati and the Textile Arts Center in Brooklyn. She has been awarded residencies at the Vermont Studio Center and the Penland School of Craft, where she developed her interdisciplinary practice combining painting and fiber arts.
Her paintings and textiles are held in private collections throughout North America and Europe. Rowe currently lives and works in Asheville, North Carolina, where she maintains an active studio practice and teaches workshops in natural dyeing and contemporary painting techniques.
Statement
My work exists at the intersection of painting and textile art, where I explore themes of memory, migration, and the quiet moments that shape our inner lives. Through oil painting and hand-dyed textiles, I create visual narratives that examine how we carry our histories with us—both the stories we choose to remember and those that resurface unexpectedly.
In my paintings, I balance stillness with symbolic imagery, incorporating geometric forms alongside organic elements to create tension between the constructed and the natural. I build layers through intuitive glazing techniques, allowing warm, earthy tones to create atmospheric depth while vibrant accents punctuate the compositions. Animals, particularly birds, appear frequently as symbolic guides representing the liminal spaces between worlds. My textile work uses traditional hand-dyeing and weaving methods to explore similar themes, with the meditative nature of fiber work offering a counterpoint to the immediacy of painting.
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