Contemporary Landscapes

Kelly Rowe is a New Zealand–based artist whose practice sits at the intersection of painting, sculpture, and architecture. Drawing on her background in architecture she creates works that explore the poetics of space, belonging, and precarity.

Her paintings, often described as “architectural landscapes,” distill horizons, facades, and structural fragments into atmospheric abstractions that evoke both shelter and exclusion. Recent works expand into sculpture and ceramics, transforming everyday forms, from mailboxes to folding chairs, into critical reflections on housing, access, and vulnerability.

Rowe’s work has been recognised with a Merit Award at the National Contemporary Art Award (2025), finalist selection at the Estuary Art & Ecology Award, and shortlisting for the Soho Art Prize (Sydney). She is represented by Sibu Gallery in Australia and continues to develop projects for major art awards and exhibitions in Aotearoa and abroad.

At the core of her practice is a commitment to making visible the structures, architectural, social, and emotional , that shape how we live together.