Amanda Rowan

Amanda Rowan's provocative still life and self-portrait images depict playful and sensual moments, eliciting humor through an exploration of the power and vulnerability of womanhood. Rowan is both curator and subject in each richly styled vignette depicting moments of mysticism and seduction. Her work explores domestic labor and gender using a mix of visual iconography, including food advertising, vintage pinup, and religious deities.

Rowan has received numerous accolades for her art, including "The Curator Award 2019", by Photo District News (P.D.N.), "Photographer of the Year 2018" by the International Chromatic Photography Publication, and the Tokyo International Award for Photography in 2019. Her work has been exhibited internationally at the Carrie Able Gallery, Photo LA, Art Basel, The Wall Street Gallery, The Leica Gallery in Los Angeles. Her images hang in the permanent collection at The Palms Hotel in Las Vegas with Damien Hirst, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Andy Warhol, and Takashi Murakami. 

Originally from the Bay area, daughter of Bluegrass Legend Peter Rowan, she began shooting rock concerts during high school. Her distinctive visual style has translated into advertising campaigns for clients, including Disney, NBC, and HBO. Her editorial portraits include global artists, performers, and pop celebrities alike.

Rowan graduated Cum Laude from Tisch School of the Arts at NYU. She resided in New York City for several years appearing as an actress in film and TV such as "Law and Order", the "Chappelle Show" with Dave Chappelle, and National Lampoon's "Pledge This!" co-staring with Paris Hilton. She performed several roles on Broadway including Curles's wife in "Of Mice and Men." Her creative practice combines an investigation of her experience as an actress and her Visual Prowess as a commercial photographer. Her work investigates ideas of the female body in the media and its intersection with contemporary visual content creation. Rowan now lives in Los Angeles, working within the genres of photography and performance art. Rowan is currently a Full-Time Faculty at the Photo Arts Conservatory at the New York Film Academy Los Angeles in both the MFA and BFA programs.

Interview by Dana Stirling

Tell us about your journey with photography? How did it all start for you and your career as an artist?

Thank you for this interview I love your Blog!

My origin story started when I got my first camera like many of your readers I imagine. I was given an old Pentax k1000 and it became a tool to communicate unspoken emotions and thoughts. My first real art photos were of myself and my friends starting at around age 11. We were exploring our bodies and ourselves existing in the space between childhood make-believe and womanhood. We would play dress-up and wander the hills of Marin County where I’m from and shoot each other.

I remember I would take the film to the drug store to get developed and one day the store called my mom to make her aware that someone was shooting provocative photos of young girls. Of course, we showed her the images and she assured the store that they were just for fun. Nothing in my mind at the time even registered that the photos could be read that way! We were fully clothed but there must have been a sense of us trying to emulate the sexy equality we saw in magazine photos. This was way before social media.

A big part of your work is a great combination of still life and portraiture. Can you tell us about the choice to work in this fashion? What originally inspired you to make work in this nature?

I am interested in the way in which objects and gestures communicate a shared language. I am compelled to tell a story with objects that play on the human understanding of metaphor and meaning. I also find it incredibly liberating to make still life work as a balance to shooting portraits. It's fascinating to me the way our minds will read emotion in a photos even though we don't see a face. I like to play with this device.

Lighting is a key component in your work as you are constructing your images to your own imaginary fantasy world that you create. I see that you often use lighting and color light that is not “natural” in the sense that it might paint the scene in a hue that would not be considered true to life, often in the spectrum of the blue, magenta tones. Can you talk about these decisions and how do you choose what style of lighting and color to use for each scene you build?

I am a storyteller and a performer. Still, photography for me is a perfect medium in that it can allow me to create a cinematic narrative in a single moment. The lighting I choose comes from my background in commercial photography and the theater. I like strong cinematic light that feels otherworldly. I am drawn to neon light and the drama of shadow and Neo-noir colored lighting. 

Your images always seem “over the top” in the sense that there are so many different elements, components, objects, symbols and more in them. Can you take us through the planning and thought process of how you create these images? How do you plan for them? How do you choose your symbols/objects/poses etc.?

I work differently depending on the project or shoot. Sometimes I am subconsciously collecting objects and gathering them until one day I take it all to the studio and start seeing what is coming together. This is how my project ritual worked.

But for this project Place Setting, I began by investigating the history of the place and the objects and the women who collected them. Then I began to make connections with other found objects to tell the narrative.

But there is always a moment where I am just sort of experimenting to see what seems to work together on a table.  I grew up in a very eclectic house. We hand art and bizarre objects from all over the world. I think this gave me a fearlessness about objects being in a relationship with each other that don't  necessarily "Match."  This tendency toward maximalism is very liberating in my work and allows me to be continually surprised by unexpected visuals.

In your latest work titled “Place setting”, which was created during the pandemic, you made the work during a Fellowship at the Women's International Study Center at Acequia Madre House in Santa Fe, New Mexico. You were inspired by the story of the location, the house and the women who inhabited it. You share how you got inspired by Eva Fényes and her life there, and her artifacts left behind. Can you tell us more about why you felt this connection to Eva and how you think you were able to honor and show her life with your work?

Yes, of course. I love this question. Eva Fényes was a woman of means and aristocratic privilege during the gilded age in NYC. After her divorce, she bought land and move to New Mexico in the late 1800s. New Mexico at that time was a territory and very much the wild west. I am inspired by her tenacity to leave the structure of her high society and seek out a life of freedom and adventure. But what really draws me to her story is the way she cultivated artists throughout her life. She created a place where independent thinkers, artists of all media, and espeshely indigenous craftspeople could be in conversation about expression. Her daughter and granddaughter continued this legacy and it was an honor to be a bel to engage with the treasured personal objects that they collected over decades in art patronage.

I’ve followed your work for many years now and I think something that always comes up in the work is the notion of food and the fact that you hide you face in many of the images behind the still life. Can you tell us about your relationship to these notions and why they are a recurring theme in your work?

I love the impermanence of food. It's a sculptural element that we create and consume multiple times a day. Food is also sensual and symbolic, ritualistic, and sensory. It continually speaks to me about domestic labor and the often unpaid work of fem energy to feed and care for people. By hiding my face I aim to connect with other women so that they can see themselves in the image and feel understood.

What are some of the challenges you face while making these elaborated pictures? How do you overcome these obstacles and what did you learn over the years that helped you perfect your craft?

My biggest challenge and lesson is that I can't do everything. Learning and excepting this has allowed me to work with incredible collaborators from florists, to bakers and photo assistants who help bring these large productions to life. These images would not have been possible without: @renegadefloral @bakeitupbuttercup @horoscopecakes @floresdebosquez @tannewillow @pamelagarciaphoto @kormi_lamarr @kunja.p @pilarlawphotography @gabriellamarksphoto

You are also an educator at the NYFA California Campus, as a working artist and educator, what would be one piece of advice you might give a fellow artist reading this interview?

My best advice is simple and also incredibly hard. I implore you to make exactly what you dream in your heart. Make sure it is connected to your truest vision. Do not waste your creative energy making work because you think that's what you “Should Do”: so people “like you”, “higher you,” or “respect you.” All that is a distraction. And the irony is that when you truly make the art that lights you up, fearlessly even when it terrifies you. Those people you were afraid, of will like you, higher you, and respect you!

Lastly – any upcoming news/ events/ exhibitions you would like to share?

My project Place Setting is opening on May 20th in Santa Fe. It's my first solo show. And I am taking over the Museum and I am excited/ nervous because it's a large-scale installation. It will feature mages as well as two films and several sculptures and installations.  I'm excited to create an experience of the project that is 3 dimensional that people can enjoy and connect with. I have also launched a line of table cloths and Place Matts from the show.