Meet the Artist
“If you ask me what I came to do in this world, I, an artist, will answer you: I am here to live out loud.”
—Emile Zola
Rowena Federico Finn is an award-winning watercolorist whose work has been exhibited in regional, statewide, and national juried competitions. She is president of the Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists and a contributing writer for the Portrait Society of America. As an active member of the Virginia Watercolor Society, she facilitated the 2021 VWS Workshop and serves on the Creasy/Johnson Funding Committee. Rowena has been teaching watercolor, color theory, and classical drawing at the Governor’s School for the Arts since 2018, and independently since 2012. She is an adjunct instructor at Tidewater Community College and is regularly invited by the Chrysler Museum to give watercolor and drawing workshops related to their major exhibitions including Watercolor: An American Medium, Edward Steichen: In Exaltation of Flowers, Americans in Spain: Painting and Travel, 1820-1920, and M.C. Escher: Infinite Variations coming Summer 2022. A passionate and outspoken activist for the rights and needs of underrepresented communities, Rowena serves on the Virginia Asian Advisory Board and is a founding member of the FilipinX Collective. Rowena resides in Virginia Beach with her talented, loving, supportive husband and three cool, clever, and silly kids.
Artist Statement
It is the unspoken stories that interest me the most. There is something I revere in the silence of a painting. Trying to capture what I see around me, be it a face, a flower, a building, is what drives my work. What I happen to rest my gaze upon is no less beautiful than the paintings I admire in a gallery or museum. I choose various subjects because they call to me like unknown books on a shelf that I simply must read. Every single person, every single organism, and even every single inanimate object has a life - a secret world of adventures and heartbreaks. As we live our increasingly busy lives, and as technology fills up every moment and distracts us endlessly, we start to forget little things. But it is those little things and little moments that define what is most worthy of our time. I sometimes fear forgetting what it felt like as a child, when I could stare at what looked like an entire galaxy in a single toy glass marble. I never want to forget that feeling, and I want my viewers to remember that feeling, too, no matter what they're observing. By noticing the everyday people and objects we normally pass by, and elevating each of them onto a metaphorical pedestal or into an actual gilded frame, I invite viewers to stop and discover the stories hiding there. Behind that pair of eyes, or lost in wilting petals, there is a whole world lived that we might otherwise have never known or appreciated.
Press
Publications
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"Virginia Watercolor Society exhibition returns to Portsmouth, running June to September," by Alison Johnson, The Virginian-Pilot, June 22, 2021
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"Virtual Figure Drawing Offers Artists Growth and Camaraderie During Pandemic," Portrait Society of America Blog, June 15, 2021. The Art of the Portrait Quarterly Journal, Volume XXII, Issue No. 90.
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“A Perfect Third Place,” The Chrysler Quarterly, Spring 2019
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“Making Visual Arts Visual,” Halo Halo Na! Filipino-American Magazine, Vol. 1, October 2018
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Best of Virginia Artists, 2005
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Scripsit, The Washington Calligrapher's Guild Journal, Vol. 25, No. 3, December 2002
Selected Exhibitions & Awards
Exhibitions
2021 Best of the East Coast, Gallery 311, Raleigh, NC
2021 Leaves & Petals, Fusion Art International Online Juried Exhibition
2021 Questions, Martha’s Vineyard Drawing Prize 2021, Online Exhibition, Juror Prize
2021 Virginia Artists, Charles Taylor Center, Hampton, VA
2021 Practice What You Teach, Virginia Art Education Association Conference, Virginia Beach, VA
2021 Awash in Color, Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists Fall Members Show, Norfolk, VA
2021 Virginia Watercolor Society Members Show, Art & Cultural Center, Portsmouth, VA
2020 Garden of Life, The Artists Gallery, Virginia Beach, VA
2020 Artists Who Teach, Charles Taylor Center, Hampton, VA
2019 Chesapeake Bay Watercolorists Fall Members Show, Norfolk, VA
2019 Virginia Artists, Charles Taylor Center, Hampton, VA
2019 Governor's School for the Arts Faculty Show, Origins Gallery, Norfolk, VA
2018 Virginia Artists, Charles Taylor Center, Hampton, VA
Awards
2021 "Lifeline" Juror Prize, Questions Exhibition, Martha's Vineyard Drawing Prize
2021 "On the Brink of Becoming Acquainted", CBW Fall Members Show, Second Place
2021 "On the Brink of Becoming Acquainted", VWS Members Show, Honorable Mention
2020 "On the Brink of Becoming Acquainted" Garden of Life Exhibition, Best in Show
2019 "Apple Blossoms", CBW Fall Members Show, Honorable Mention
2017 "The Graceful Envelope" Honorable Mention
2008 "Pattern Pieces", Free Spirit Exhibition, Award of Merit
2006 "Poppin' Poppies", Best of Virginia Artists Publication, Honorable Mention