Rowan Belcher
Gisborne

Rowan Belcher was born in Solihull Birmingham in the U.K. in 1954. He has intense memories of the mid-sixties - lying back in the long grassy fields of Worcestershire with his friends in their hippie gears, listening to Sgt. Pepper's on their transistor radios. It was then, intoxicated by the culture of those heady times that he knew that art and music were going to be his life.
Rowan's art practice started off with a Foundation course at the Mid Warwickshire College where he completed his art history and painting A levels. He then completed a Diploma in Design, Printed Textiles, in Bristol 1974, soon after emigrating to New Zealand with his family.
He has been painting since the late seventies and has had small exhibitions in Wellington, Auckland and even in London. His most recent showings have been in Gisborne.
He is predominantly a painter of large-scale abstract works but has been venturing into numerous other areas and mediums of late...excursions into realistic water colours...a series of still-life studies, which he hopes to exhibit sometime in the near future...large figurative drawings which he intends to do in oils...working with clay for figurative studies and he is also anticipating a foray into the world of ceramics.
Rowan's sources of inspiration are just as diverse as his practice: On recent travels to London and Turkey, he was able to add to his collection of photographs.
Music produces in Rowan a compulsion to express himself in colour; a great fan of Yoko Ono and other avant garde and experimental music, he also admires the Beatles, Lennon and Harrison in particular, Joni Mitchell and David Bowie. Other inspirations and influences include Judy Chicago, Henri Matisse, William Scott, Wassilly Kandinsky, Paul Klee, Piet Mondrian, Patrick Heron, Robert Rauschenberg, Sean Scully, and Andy Warhol.
When he is not producing his own art Rowan is the Art Teacher at Gisborne Girls' High School, teaching both art and art history, and is also the Publications Coordinator. He occasionally takes life drawing classes for adults at the Artists Society and is also open to running a workshop or a series of workshops for students in the region.
An example of Rowan's work is presently on display at the Tairawhiti Museum foyer.

Rowan can be contacted at belchers@xnet.co.nz or on (06) 868 5715