ROWENE WEEMS
FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHER
All photographs copyrighted
©roweneweems+8th Art Studio, LLC
HOW I SEE
I am not interested in shooting new things- I am interested to see things new.
-Ernst Haas.
Photography is like breathing for me. It is an instinctive way of connecting with people, nature, and space through candid portraits, landscapes, and abstracts. I've been significantly influenced by Renaissance painters, the expressive energy of the Impressionists, and street photographers, Kertesz, Saul Leiter, Ernst Haas, and Vivian Maier. For the last decade, I have been pursuing a pictorial and abstract style, where I approach both the camera and post-processing as painterly tools...transforming realism into something more energetic, mysterious, and nostalgic.
After two years surrounded by art at Kingswood Cranbrook, I graduated with a BA in Fine Arts from Kenyon College. I continued art and photography studies at Boston Museum School and the University of Colorado. With the intention of becoming an art therapist, I earned a master's degree in counseling psychology. After teaching and practicing psychotherapy for several years, I pivoted to the museum world, where I spent two decades as a museum director and curator in Wyoming. Through it all, I have continued photography studies at Santa Fe Photography Workshops, Rocky Mountain School of Photography and more. I now divide my time between Westport and Wyoming.
Currently, I am working on two projects: Workers of the World, a portrait series honoring local workers, and Wish You Were Here, a collection of vintage-style Westport postcards. These can be seen at the Westport Book Shop.
Wish You Were Here vintage postcard series: This Wish You Were Here vintage “postcard series” is both an homage to my career as a museum curator and to my love of 19th-century French and mid-century American painting. Two decades of opening shoeboxes of treasures and handling historic photographs and postcards have shaped how I see and process my images. Each piece is rooted in a sense of place, inviting nostalgia through subject, palette, desaturation, texture, and hand-coloring. In this way, the series becomes a bridge between memory and place, past and present.
Workers of the World Series: The Workers of the World series is a tribute to the unsung heroes of our daily lives. Though I've been making portraits of street workers for years, it was during Covid that I started truly connecting with them, learning their names and hearing their stories. Their gratitude for being recognized truly energizes me and propels me to continue this project. Workers matter.
Poetry & Motion Impressions series began in 2015 as a deeply visceral experience. Images are created in-camera with slow shutter speeds (now known as ICM). They reflect my lifelong attraction to impressionist painters and the partially rendered sketches of the masters. Like them, I try to create mystery and beauty by softening the world, moving the viewer to feel the energy or calm of a captured moment. Photographer Ernst Haas put it beautifully when he explained why he chose motion to liberate his work ... In music, one remembers never one tone, but a melody, a theme, a movement. In dance, never a moment, but again, the beauty of a movement in time and space...
SOLO EXHIBITS
Wish You Were Here, Westport, Westport Books Gallery, Westport, Ct.
Poetry & Motion, Solo Exhibit, Northwest Sinclair Gallery, Powell, WY
Imagining Metal, Solo Exhibit, Plaza Diane Arts Center, Powell, WY
New Work, Solo Exhibit, Gestalt Studios, Powell, WY
Home, Solo Exhibit, First Bank of Wyoming Gallery, Powell, WY.
Borders Bookstore, Solo Exhibit, Billings, MT
Metallic Dreams, Solo Exhibit, Northwest Sinclair Gallery, Powell, WY
North Windows, Solo Exhibit, Park County Library Gallery, Powell, WY
GROUP EXHIBITS
Westport Collective, Westport, CT
Carriage Barn Arts Center, New Canaan, Ct.
A. Smith Gallery, Johnston City, TX
Westport Artists, Westport Women's Club Gallery, Westport, Ct.
Plaza Diane Art Center Invitational, Powell, WY
Art Auction, Juried, Nicolaysen Museum, Casper, WY
Shoot Like a Woman Photography Group Exhibits (Three)) WY
Plaza Diane Arts Center Group Exhibit, Powell, Wy
AVA Art Center Gala Live Auction Fundraiser, Gillette, WY
AVA Art Center Gala Live Auction, Gillette, WY
Featured Artist, Open Range Images Gallery, Cody, WY
Miles City Museum Invitational and Traveling Exhibit, Miles City, MT
Ann Simpson Art Mobile, State of Wyoming traveling exhibit.
Nicolaysen Museum Art, juried Live and SilentAuction, Casper, WY
Yellowstone Art Museum, juried Silent Auction, Billings, MT
AVA Art Center, Gala Art juried Live Auction, Gillette, WY
Rocky Mountain Biennial, Center for Fine Art Photography, Fort Collins, CO
Postcards, Toucan Gallery, Billings, MT
Little Picture Show, Custer County Art Center, MT
Travels, Two Person Exhibit, NWC Art Gallery, Powell, WY
AWARDS
1st Place, Celebration, Santa Fe Photography Workshop, NM
Honorable Mention, Celebration, Santa Fe Photography Workshop, NM
Honorable Mention, Liquid ~Sky, Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, Minn.
Honorable Mention, Trees, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
Juror’s Selection, Trees, New York Center for Photographic Art (NYC4PA)
AVA Honorable Mention, Paths, Boardwalk Gallery, CO
Honorable Mention, Home, Santa Fe Photography Workshop, NM
2nd Runner-up Best in Show, Little Picture Show, CCAC, Miles City, MT
PUBLICATIONS
If I Had Said Beauty, Cover Photo, Tami Haaland, 2024
Unique & Different, Cover Photo, Memoir by Warren Murphy 2021
Poetry East, Kathleen Kirk, Cover Photo 2022
Princeton Architectural Press, Tippet Rise Art Center
Architectural Digest, Discover Tippet Rise Art Center
Center for Fine Art Photography Advertising Poster, Fort Collins, CO
Escape Into Life Magazine, Featured Artist 2022
Photo-of-the-Day, Don’t Take Pictures Magazine
ICMMag, Intentional Camera Movement Magazine, Featured Artist 2021
Paths, Boardwalk Gallery Book, Greely, CO
Arcadia Press, Then and Now: The Photographic History of Powell, Wyoming
JURIED PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITS
Red, DeCode Gallery, Tucson, AZ
In Between Moments, Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Curves, New York Center for Photographic Art (NYC4PA), NYC
Portals, Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Liquid +Sky II Praxis Gallery, Minneapolis, MN
Emerging Artists, Limner Gallery, NYC
Trees, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
“She”, A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
Magic of Light, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
All About Light, SEC4P, Greenville, SC
Ode to the Ocean, Collexart Gallery, Portland, ME
Essential Water, Photoplace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
World in Motion, SEC4P, Greenville, SC
Botanicals, A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
Liquid-Sky, Praxis Gallery, St. Paul, MN
Current Pathways, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC
Portals: Windows, Mirrors & Doors, PhotoPlace Gallery, Middlebury, VT
Domicile, A. Smith Gallery, Johnson City, TX
Luminosity: The Beauty of Light, New York Center for Photographic Art, NYC
Windows, Creativity Continues, Santa Fe Workshops, NM
Open Call, SE Center for Photography, Greenville, SC
Trees, PhotoPlace Gallery, VT
Trees, New York Center for Photographic Art (NYC4PA), NYC
Color, SE Center of Photography, Greenville, SC
Motion, Photography Center of Cape Cod & Cape Cod Art Center, MA
Celebration, Santa Fe Photography Workshops, NM
Home, Santa Fe Photography Workshops, NM
Pathways, Boardwalk Gallery, Greeley, CO
Other professional work includes events, home/architecture, weddings, and portraits
All work is for sale.