Josh Rowell England , b. 1990

  • biography
    Born in 1990 in Kent, England, Josh Rowell graduated from Kingston Art School in 2013, where he received a first...
     
    Born in 1990 in Kent, England, Josh Rowell graduated from Kingston Art School in 2013, where he received a first class BFA with honours. Following a course in Art Criticism at Central Saint Martins college, Rowell returned to Kingston Art School for an MFA in 2015, where he was awarded a first- class distinction.
     
    Rowell generates his artistic vision by focusing on technological advances that shape our contemporary lives, communicating our increasingly mediated human interactions within the confines of visual art. The artist balances analogue techniques with the instantaneous nature of the digital age. This juxtaposition produces a language that explores and reshapes information, and celebrates the hand-made in a time that is increasingly being enveloped by the virtual.
    ​
    Since his emergence as an abstract painter, Rowell has expanded to sculpture, mixed media, and often times works with light, video, and sound installations. Despite these disparate media, everything is underpinned by a coding system, “everything can be reduced to a molecular binarism where all systems can be simplified to yes/no decisions,” the artist explains.
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    Mirroring the proliferation associated with the technological advancements these codes can generate, Rowell paints a vernacular, as evident by his “Painting Language” series, far more complex and carrying greater levels of information than a traditional one-zero binary. The language of colour, pattern, and form, is seen as dots laboriously covering canvases. These sequences, which the artist developed himself, read as a codified statement to create new forms of visual text that explore the possibilities and boundaries of expression and information. 
     
    The artists works have been exhibited in London, New York, Miami, Seattle, Basel, Hong Kong and Mexico and his works are part of public collections including the Uffizi Gallery in Florence, the Gregorian Foundation in Washington, London Kingston University's contemporary art collection, and the Matilda collection in San Miguel De Allende. In 2017/18 he had his first museum exhibition at the Palacio Nacional de Guatemala. Rowell won the Public Choice award at the VIA Arts Prize 2017, and was included in Future Now, the yearly publication by Aesthetica listing the 100 most exciting emerging artists of the year. In 2019 he was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London. In 2020 he was named joint winner of the Dentons Art Prize and was invited to participate in ‘False Memory’, a group exhibition at Rugby At Museum curated by Lindsay Seers.
     
    Rowell has works in private collections as well, in the UK, USA, Canada, China, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, Switzerland, Holland, Monte Carlo, Australia, Ireland, Russia, Kuwait, Bermuda, Hungary, Japan, Mexico, and Peru.
     
     
  • Works
  • Exhibitions
  • Press

  • CV

    EDUCATION

    2009–2013 BFA in Interior Design | Lebanese International University, Beirut, Lebanon

    2008–2009 Freshman in Interior Design | American University of Dubai, UAE

    2004–2007 Associate of Arts in Graphic Design | Hafez University, Tehran, Iran

    1999–2003 High School Diploma in Graphics | Art School of Shahid Avini, Tehran, Iran

     

    SOLO EXHIBITIONS

    2025 

    Roma Art Week | Rome, Italy

    2022 

    Life is a Dream | Metro al Madina, Beirut, Lebanon

    2018 

    Glimpse of a Glitter | 392RMEIL393 Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

    2008 

    In the Eyes of Time | Rastgah Art Gallery, Tehran, Iran

     

    GROUP EXHIBITIONS

    2024 

    Unstable Realities | Corner MAXXI - National Museum of 21st Century, Rome, Italy

    Nowhere, Now Here | Casa della Cultura, Rome, Italy

    Counterproof | Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma / RUFA, Rome, Italy

    Menart Fair, presented by Firetti Contemporary | Paris, France

    2023

    Double troubles | Accademia di Belle Arti di Roma / RUFA, Rome, Italy

    2022 

    Eyes, Wide, Shut | Firetti Contemporary, Dubai, UAE

    2021

     Moi nous elles | Espace Saint-Rémi, Bordeaux, France

    2020 

    Moi nous elles | Institut Cervantes de Bordeaux, Bordeaux, France

    Collection & Beyond the Region | Art Scene Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

    2019 

    OFF, SITE | Le Gray, Beirut Art Week, Beirut, Lebanon

    Collective Exhibition | 392RMEIL393 Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

    2018 

    Creation in Harmony, Live Painting Performance | Iwan Maktabi, Beirut, Lebanon

    Three and a Half | 392RMEIL393 Gallery, Beirut, Lebanon

    Abolish Article 153 | HUB Kuwait, Kuwait

    2017

     Women in War | HUB Kuwait, Kuwait

    2016 

    Beirut Design Week, Jewelry Design | Innovation Factory, Beirut, Lebanon

    2013 

    Souk Berutiyah Exhibition, Cutlery Design | Beirut, Lebanon

    2009 

    Manuscript Illumination, collaboration with Mehdi Fallah | Finishing Touch Gallery, Dubai, UAE

    2008 

    Manuscript Illumination, collaboration with Gholam Hossein Amirkhani | Saba Cultural House, Tehran, Iran

     

    AWARDS & GRANTS

    2023 

    International Prize for Portrait, Seve Ballesteros | Tifo Flag for the Ryder Cup, Rome, Italy

    2017 

    Trophy for Female Artists | Women in War, HUB Kuwait, Kuwait

     

    ART FAIRS

    2024

    Menart Fair, presented by Firetti Contemporary | Paris, France

     

    COLLABORATIONS

    2009 

    Manuscript Illumination, collaboration with Mehdi Fallah | Finishing Touch Gallery, Dubai, UAE

    2008 

    Manuscript Illumination, collaboration with Gholam Hossein Amirkhani | Saba Cultural House, Tehran, Iran

     

    PROFESSIONAL

    2025 

    EWA Frauenzentrum | Berlin, Germany

    2019 - 2023 

    Art Scene Gallery | Beirut, Lebanon

    2018 

    Alserkal Avenue | Dubai, UAE

    2017 

    Dar El-Nimer for Arts and Culture | Beirut, Lebanon

    Museum of Goa | Goa, India