Rowan Brownell Art
Born and raised in Seattle, Washington, Rowan Brownell is currently attending the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore. He lives in a house with four other working artists and is employed as a handyman.
My interest in art started in comics. I would pour over the art in Mike Mignola’s Hellboy or the parodies in MAD magazine for hours on end. My interest in horror, comedy and science fiction started manifesting in doodles all over my school desk and in edgy cartoons that sent me into countless office visits.
In my sophomore year of high school, I began posting comics to the internet and amassed over 200 thousand followers on TikTok. Through this, I began to sell my art and do commissioned pieces. After studying film at Ballard High School for four years, I decided that I would rather be working in the art department than behind the camera. I built a scrappy portfolio out of my best sketchbook and began applying to art schools.
I landed at MICA, where I quickly met a core friend group of dedicated painters, photographers, printmakers and illustrators. After spending a first semester studying animation and landing a spot in the Stick in the Dirt animation festival, I turned my studies toward illustration, comics, and philosophy. In the summer after freshman year, I turned my 20 page comic COMATOSEr, done as a final project, into a full fledged comic book.
I began painting in my sophomore year while studying the human form in a life drawing course. Not having painted before, I was trying my best to translate my gestural drawing style into a liquid medium. After two professors urged me to switch, I became a painting major. Now I am in my junior year at MICA and have been honing my skills as an oil painter.
As i continue to illustrate and design, I’m exploring the aesthetics of the apocalypse in my paintings, studying hazard gear and hallucinatory visions, informed by absurdities in my own life and mind. Humor and horror continue to be the root of my work.
I spend my free time watching movies, reading, and modeling for friends’ photography.
Photo Credit: Colin Scott Klavins