Josh Rowell British , b. 1990

Josh Rowell (b. 1990, England) 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. Rowell 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.

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Predominantly an abstract painter, Rowell also works with mosaic, sculpture, and sound and video based installations. Overall, his creative process is underpinned by a coding system where “everything can be reduced to a molecular binarism where all systems can be simplified to yes/no decisions”. Rowell is fascinated by the proliferating effect of coding in tech advancement, and his paintings act as a response to it. His series, ‘Painting Language’, comprises canvases painted with polka-dot colours in regimented rows painted with analogue precision. These sequences, which the artist developed himself, read as a codified communiqué to create new forms of visual text that explore the possibilities and boundaries of expression and information. 

Rowell graduated from Kingston Art School in 2013 with a BFA. Following a course in Art Criticism at Central Saint Martins college, Rowell returned to Kingston for an MFA in 2015. His 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, the Gregorian Foundation in Washington. Rowell won the Public Choice award at the VIA Arts Prize 2017, and was included in Future Now (Aesthetica’s 100 most interesting emerging artists). In 2019 he was selected for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition, London.