Richard Rowan
Forever More| 2022

Richard Rowan's’ Forever More collection of mixed media originals is based on his love of the Finnish wilderness. The Rowan family have friends who live there, and in between visits, his friends would send photographs of the same location at different times of day and at different times of the year. Upon seeing how the same view can look so beautifully different, he was inspired to create his own incredible versions of the landscapes he saw. Forever More signifies the comfort of a favourite place as it changes throughout time. “Even if you stay in the same place, it all still changes," says Richard.

Printed with identical matte black landscapes of forest trees and mountains as a foreground, each piece has a different background created using Richard’s painstaking technique of painting the reverse of the glass. In a break from tradition Richard paints foreground to background, requiring a more considered approach to detail and layering .

The artworks in this beautiful collection are a fusion of a print and an original, making each one a truly unique piece. A black and white silhouette is printed onto glass and then returned to Richard to paint the detailed background layers. The result is more breathtaking artworks showcasing the magnificent beauty of various seasons and times in the very same location. 

Printed with identical matte black landscapes of forest trees and mountains as a foreground, each one has a different background created using Richard’s painstaking technique of painting the reverse of the glass. In a break from tradition Richard paints foreground to background, requiring a more considered approach to detail and layering .

As with his other works, Richard was inspired by a particular piece of music while creating this collection; this time an emotional instrumental piece called Into The Night by Tracey Chattaway. He finds it helps his creative process, which begins with cleaning the pieces of glass with both glass cleaner and alcohol to make sure it is right to paint on - he even has a favourite brand of paper towel to dry the glass with! Once he is satisfied with this, he gets down to creating the piece with the hundreds of brushes and sculpture tools he has in his Wimbledon studio. Being at the forefront of his technique, Richard creates most of his own tools, made to his own exacting specifications.

It's not just creating the artwork which takes a very long time, the pieces need to dry correctly too; he's been known to go to his studio at the end of the garden at 3am to check the process of a piece.

Featured art (L-R): Forever More I, Forever More II and Forever More VII by Richard Rowan. Mixed media on glass, sold out.

About Richard

Richard has always shown a talent for art. When he took his A-levels, he was awarded the highest grade for Art in the country. The importance of detail in Richard's work has always been there, too; as a teenager he'd spend a whole summer painting a single subject. Richard studied Fine Art at university, and after pursuing an initial short art career, he decided to get a job working in motorsports. This role took him around the world and influenced his future art - he saw an incredible sunset in Argentina which he subsequently painted a few years later.

Richard returned to art after he had a car accident. He took his work to galleries and they sold so well that he soon found he couldn’t get hold of new canvases fast enough. This is when his father suggested he paint on some leftover glass panels he had, and so Richard's signature style was born; his immense craft and artistry can now be seen in every inch of his artwork.

Richard loves seeing his art on collectors' walls, and the story behind this collection would suit anyone wanting to create a gallery wall of multiple pieces.