Serena Rowe

The Scottish painter tells STEVE PILL why time is precious, why emotional responses to colour are useful, and how she finds focus every day with the help of her studio wall

- STEVE PILL

Serena Rowe was born in Edinburgh in 1977. She spent two years studying classical techniques at the Florence Academy of Art in Italy from 2001 and also completed The Drawing Year at London’s Royal Drawing School.

In 2004, Serena was the recipient of the RGI Graduate Award from the Royal Glasgow Institute of the Fine Arts, which resulted in her first solo exhibition at the city’s RGI Kelly Gallery. Now based in South London, her work is represented both in the collection of HRH The Prince of Wales and the Thames & Hudson book Ways of Drawing. www.serenarowe.co.uk

How do sketchbooks factor into your creative practice?

When I draw in a sketchbook, it’s never what ends up in a painting. My sketchbooks are full of a lot of people and a lot of feelings, bits from books – I read a lot – and maybe ideas or things that I want to remember. I draw like a musician practises his scales: it’s something you absolutely have to keep doing or you lose it.

There are lots of wonderful things you can do to keep your brain and your hand in sync, like draw with your left hand or draw with your eyes closed, just so that when you do come to paint – because I think of painting as “drawing in colour” – you can be much more instinctive and you can actually paint from a feeling and a moment, rather than worrying about the technical stuff.

The mark making in your charcoal drawings is very dynamic. Do you like to work quickly in your sketchbooks?