ART OF ROWENA HC

by Rowena Morrill & Doris Vallejo

Always feminine, often erotic, and usually tinged with irony, fantasy artist Rowena takes modern dilemmas and presents them in a fairytale world both fanciful and powerful. In The Lovers, for example, a couple grip each other through the bars of a grated door, legs wrapping around the iron as well as each other. Yet, the gate is free-standing, attached to nothing, and the two would only have to walk around it to escape the barrier. But, they do not - keeping their intimacy at a distance by staying inside the prison they themselves have made. Behind the sun glows, but as Vallejo points out, we cannot know if it is rising or setting on this romance. Above all, Rowena creates extraordinary images of women, as a magical portrait of MIT-trained electrical engineer Susan Ferre reveals so brilliantly. Over 100 artworks and insightful commentary show the ideas and influences behind the artist, who has done covers for - among others - Anne McCaffrey, Isaac Asimov, Piers Anthony, Madeleine L'Engle, Samuel R. Delaney, and even National Lampoon! Text by Doris Vallejo.

HC, 112pgs