Epiphany From Above

Richard Rowan’s latest collection was inspired by a recent trip to Iceland to see the Aurora Borealis. With a local photographer and filmmaker acting as his guide, Richard visited remote, secret locations where tourists don’t usually get to, driving out into the wilds, walking in the darkness and waiting in the cold, sometimes until three in the morning, for the magic of the aurora to begin.

Richard Rowan takes the traditional genre of landscape painting and casts it in a new light, painting oil directly onto glass for a striking, translucent effect. A master of technique, his meticulous methods challenge the boundaries of traditional painting. The foreground of each picture is painted first and is usually left to dry for up to two weeks before the next layer is applied. In this series, the blended picture was finished before the aurora was added to the drying piece.