Artist Statement/ Biography

Rowan Renee explores how queer identity is mediated by the law. Through image, text and installation, they elaborate themes of authorship, representation and erasure in State records and personal archives. They use labor-intensive processes including weaving, printmaking and analog photography to appropriate and transform official records into counter-archives that repair histories of trauma. Through their genderqueer body, they articulate new possibilities for pleasure and justice for people living within conditions of abjection.

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Rowan Renee (b. 1985, West Palm Beach, Florida) is a genderqueer artist currently working in Brooklyn, NY. Their solo exhibitions include Z at Pioneer Works (2015) and Bodies of Wood at the Aperture Foundation (2017). They have received awards from the Aaron Siskind Foundation, the Harpo Foundation, and Red Bull House of Art in Detroit. Between the Lines, their current project in collaboration with We, Women Photo, uses correspondence based art workshops with to address the impact of incarceration on LGBTQ+ communities in Florida. Their installation, No Spirit For Me (2019), is included in the exhibition Marking Time: Art in the Age of Mass Incarceration, curated by Dr. Nicole R. Fleetwood, currently on view at MoMA PS1.