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| 'Sea' Thick white roses, enfolded by intense leaves pose silently in a vase. The hues of orange shown in the background almost appear as a smoky sunset or a foggy city in the distance. https://www.artofcierra.com/product/expressionist-flower-painting-on-canvas-panel-8x10-framed-sea |
The following excerpt is taken from my Visual Art Journal late Summer interview.
Visual Art Journal: Your artwork captures a deep sense of emotion and vulnerability. How do you channel these feelings into your work?
Cierra G. Rowe: I was a very sensitive child who grew into a very sensitive woman. As a painter, I lean into this. The coldness and warmth of the past have, in part, shaped me. As an artist, all that you have are the things that you are composed of, to channel and capture into any given work of art. My paintings hold that sense of emotion and vulnerability because as a person, that’s a very big piece of who I am. I translate the intimate and erratic combination of pain and beauty through paint, often favoring positive aspects over dark. I encode myself within my paintings through my selective palette and style by focusing on what is important to me and blurring everything else. There is an intense hunger in painting. I am addicted and once I’ve completed a new piece I feel satiated.
Visual Art Journal: In your artist statement, you mention that your painting style was born out of trauma. Could you share how these experiences have influenced your creative process?
Cierra G. Rowe: Trauma makes you see things differently, sometimes it reduces you to a shell of yourself. When you break, you break and there’s no manual for how to unshatter yourself. Eventually it makes that which is truly important stand out and that which is not, fade. I remember caring about dumb things — silly things that, in hindsight, should not have mattered. Then things happened and in the aftermath I realized that I did not care about those things and felt shameful that I ever allowed them to distract me. Trauma has influenced my creative process by allowing me to wholly understand that I do not have to prove anything to anyone and that I do not have to keep up with the chaotic speed of modernity or the digital world and how it shrinks people. As an artist, I represent myself through my paintings. I’m allowed to change. I’m allowed to evolve and become better or fall down and get up again. I can transcribe soul and significance through my paintings, while holding tight to my artistic traditions, knowing that there is great liberation in being true to oneself.
Visual Art Journal: You mentioned that you often wonder why it’s called ‘painting,’ implying a deeper connection between pain and creation. Could you elaborate on this connection and how it manifests in your art?
Cierra G. Rowe: I feel that there is always a reason behind the creation of any given work of art – unseen things that compel an artist to create their masterpiece or go further by throwing themselves into their craft. Often, that reason is revealed to be pain. The most tortured people often create the most beautiful works of art. Their sadness, strife and anguish seem to turn them inward, over and over until they have formed a bond with their tools, leading to works of art that inexplicably connect with others on a much deeper level than surface. Personally, I began isolating myself at a very young age and because I was reclusive – I only communicated through my art. Overtime, that led to me grasping a deeper understanding of art as a whole and what color and emotion is capable of.
A very special thank you to VAJ, especially Anna Gvozdeva for taking the time to interview me. My full Visual Art Journal interview can be read in full here or read in print by purchasing a copy of Issue eight here
Every artist has something that they enjoy indulging in — I am a rigid lover of coffee. Outside of fueling the artist, coffee is also especially important for the holidays. Coffee and the holidays go together like New Years Eve and Times Square, like Motown and Marvin, like Siegfried and Roy (before the tiger attack), Or Jules and George from 'My Best Friend's Wedding' — They just fit. The following is a kind of ''coffee wishlist'' for the holiday season.
Kopi Luwak Coffee, Wild Gathered, 100% Pure, Whole Bean
Orangutan Sumatran Ground Coffee Dark Forest
Raven's Brew : Dark Roast Bruin Blend Coffee
Wonky Coffee Double Dark Roast Ground
Lavazza + Rifle Paper Co. Holiday Blend Ground Coffee Medium Roast
Exceedingly Rare Los Rodriguez Family Bolivia SL-28 x Caturra
Kahawa 1893 Serengeti Blend
Intelligentsia Coffee, Light Roast Ground Coffee
Bones Coffee: Pumpkin Spice Jacked O Lantern (they also have fire mugs!!)
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Soldier Coffee House Medium Roast
Starbucks Italian Roast
Thanksgiving Coffee Ethiopia Yirgacheffe Light Roast
Ross St Roasting Bohemian Gothic
Korn Koffee Dark Roast
San Francisco Bay Coffee Fog Chaser Medium Dark
The following excerpt was taken from Sad Girl Review Issue Six: Muse, Heroine & Fangirl. Written by Amber Morrison Fox (Founder of SGR) published in Spring '21.
''Cierra Rowe's approach to painting is vivid and visceral: she often makes use of rich, buttery impasto strokes with intense swirls of colour. She paints landscapes, animals, flowers and people that may or may not be imagined. Ther is often no outline to separate her figures from their settings. The lack of distinct edges creates the sensation that all of the elements in the composition are blending into one another, yet through colour and gesture the definat forms hold their ground. Cierra maintains an active but low-key presence on social media. She enigmatically poses with flowers and her artworks, carefully choosing what to reveal and what to coneal about her life and work. (...)''
Amber is amazing. The complete issue is absolutely gorgeous and I am still really stoked that Amber invited me to contribue.
Link to view complete digital issue: https://www.sadgirlreview.com/sgr-issue6.pdf
According to Wiki: ''Expressionism is a modernist movement (...) Its typical trait is to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas. Expressionist artists have sought to express the meaning of emotional experience rather than physical reality.''
According to Britannica: ''Expressionism is an artistic style in which the artist seeks to depict not objective reality but rather the subjective emotions and responses that objects and events arouse within a person. The artist accomplishes this aim through distortion, exaggeration, primitivism, and fantasy and through the vivid, jarring, violent, or dynamic application of formal elements. In a broader sense Expressionism is one of the main currents of art in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and its qualities of highly subjective, personal, spontaneous self-expression are typical of a wide range of modern artists and art movements.''
Simple paragraphs that ring true several times over about me as a painter and my art. One theme that hasn't wavered within my paintings is emotion and my attempts to accurately capture it. As an emotional artist, I can't help but let that ooze out into my paintings — It's as natural as a bee pollinating a flower.
So, considering all things that go into my art, personal perception and surface aesthetic of my modern works, Expressionism is the appropriate label to use regarding what category the style of my paintings fall into.
This excerpt was taken from an interview with British photographer Joe Redski around '19.
''Cierra Rowe’s artwork is captivating. Totally unique and powerful, her acrylic paintings have a soulful intensity and ethereal beauty. There is a dark edge to many of them. Yet there is a playfulness and wondrous creativity in all of her ideas, that are exploded onto canvas in her detailed and energetic brushstrokes and vivid colours. (...) But it doesn’t stop there, gorgeous landscapes, awesome abstracts and incredibly detailed and utterly compelling illustrations that obviously come from an artist of unique talent. I am reminded of Salvador Dali and David Lynch.''
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We visited a new bookstore, one whose selection of books seems quality for sure but unfortunately stunted and very modern. Definitely no Barnes and Noble. If only they had a larger selection. I did manage to find something. I forgot to take photos and am admittedly a terrible blogger. I'm not accustomed to taking so many photos of random things. One wonders how ''influencers'' manage to pull that off everyday without going absolute bonkers. Anyways, this stock image will have to do.
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When they arrived they were closed and sleeping (zzzzzzzz). And over the course of a day they have outstretched their petals and opened like a human yawning in the morning. They are impeccable, lovely white Columbian roses. And after a fresh trim and change of water (mixing a home remedy recipe for hopeful longevity) these babies are a daydream and ready to stand tall. Absolutely smitten with this bouquet, their lovely, deep, rich moss green leaves against babysoft, cream coloration. What inspiration these have brought!!
Dracunculus Vulgaris; also known as the Voodoo Lily, Black Dragon, Dragon lily, Black Arum and others. Painting and researching flowers and plants is proving therapeutic. Having always been curious of them, it reminds me of how profound and beautiful nature as a whole is and always has been. my arm was hurting from the iv, which did hinder me painting and performing regular things without pain and discomfort. The bruising is finally letting up, allowing me to get back to painting. I was studying one of my works in progress last night and realized that logically Dracunculus Vulgaris can't be positioned in a vase due to its size. Most vampires find vases uncomfortable... and I don't blame them.
I was given the news a week ago that The Pearview Gallery will be including my art in their annual virtual interactive Halloween exhibition. https://www.pearviewgallery.com/ begins October 14th at 7pm EST.
Drawing out flowers as a guide for what I would like to paint. It's calming painting flowers and given that I also like to research what I paint, It's fascinating to discover that there are so many species and families of them. Given my southern roots, nature has always been a constant, accompanied by a curious adoration of flowers, trees, plants and animals - but it seems that flowers hold something especially intriguing. Their fragility, strength, elegance and variety are something that I admire.
My floral paintings are about emotion; that link between the natural and the raw and how, somewhere in between, there is beauty. One could argue that within any given work of art there is always more — it's only a matter of if a viewer is willing to see that. Rather than repress emotions, I instead channel them into my paintings. Art without honesty is empty, vacuous. I think that there is already enough of that. Meaningful doesn't mean that everyone understands what I've painted - it means that it's significant to me, as the artist.
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| 'Easy On The Eyes' China Pink Tulips unfold together, reaching outward as their vase enfolds them. A pulsating glow of orange and magenta emanates from the darkness. https://www.artofcierra.com/product/easy-on-the-eyes |
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| 'Serene' White tulips close their eyes while a tranquil blue glows around their stems. In a clear vase, in blackness — they become the light. https://www.artofcierra.com/product/serene |
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'Holding On' Light-kissed Chrysanthemums bundle together as they float in the center of their round, clear vase of water. Soft and erratic swishes of purples, pinks and yellow linger around them as they soak up the ambiance. |
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| 'Chemistry' Formal Dahlias furl around each other in a dance of romance. Chaotic fog surrounds them as they glow into each other. https://www.artofcierra.com/product/chemistry |
