"Thrum and Thrimble the Cymbals" Brent Rowley

Brent Rowley, London, AR
Thrum and Thrimble the Cymbals, 2026
Watercolor, acrylic, and wax pastel on paper
24 x 22”

In our fractured, mechanistic society—data-driven and commodified at every turn—I create art that glorifies the flux and flow of existence. At the usual boundaries of line, shape, and color, my recent works push against expectation, breaking apart understandings of landscape and figure. Rather than dividing the landscape from the form or the figures from each other, my work questions perceived divisions and allows them to flow into one another.

My work is heavily inspired by one of our oldest symbols of change and unification—the ancient sculpture, myths, and plays that relate to the god Dionysus. Encounters with the god Dionysus resulted in psychological transformation, demanding realignment in the person's life. Always arriving, perpetually new, Dionysus is the god of blurred boundaries, of the dissolution of stable identities. As an antidote to our anxiety-ridden society, Dionysus champions the ecstatic present, living in the moment rather than worried about the future or nostalgic for the past.

I employ psychedelic contortions of space, distorted figures, and hyperbolic colors to express the spirit of both ecstasy and derangement that accompany the god. The resulting work is not entirely abstract or representative, not entirely contemporary or historical, allowing the viewer to be always arriving, devising new conclusions upon each viewing. Figures become background which turn back into figures in a never-ending dance. No one ever steps in the same river twice—in my paintings, change is the only constant.