Rowan Pope

Rowan Pope is an artist whose drawings and paintings explore the human condition through visual narrative. Many of his works are inspired by literature, particularly the darkly imaginative fiction of Franz Kafka, while others draw from history, memory, and the natural world. His landscapes and botanical studies invite viewers to discover the extraordinary within the ordinary and to approach familiar subjects with renewed wonder.

Pope has worked extensively with genocide and Holocaust survivors, and some of his most powerful works derive from the stories they have shared. Working in an imaginative form of hyperrealism, he combines photographic source material into digital collages that become the foundation for meticulously rendered drawings and paintings.

Pope graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Stanford University and earned his Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Minnesota. He has taught drawing and foundations courses at both the University of Minnesota and the Minneapolis College of Art and Design, where he received a Faculty Development Grant to travel to Prague and research the life and work of Franz Kafka. In 2013, he created an illustrated book based on the stories of Holocaust survivor Joe Grosnacht, a project supported by a Major Arts Grant from Rimon: The Minnesota Jewish Arts Council.

His work has been exhibited nationally and internationally and is represented by Lowry Hill Gallery in Minneapolis. His drawings are included in numerous private and public collections, including the Walker Art Center and the Minneapolis Institute of Art.