ANDREA KOWCH Biography

As a painter working within the artistic genre of American Magic Realism, Andrea Kowch combines realistic narrative and naturalistic technique in her painting, subtly fusing these elements together with surreal, dreamlike undercurrents in the quest to investigate and represent the human condition. Early on, she was described as “a powerful voice emerging, demonstrating a highly sensitive consciousness that informs a culturally-laced symbolism.” Born in Detroit, Michigan, she attended the College for Creative Studies on the Walter B. Ford II Scholarship, and graduated Summa Cum Laude with a BFA in 2009. Her paintings and works on paper are rich in mood, allegory, and precision of medium, reflecting a wealth of influences from Northern Renaissance and American art to the rural landscapes and vernacular architecture of her native Michigan.

The recipient of many honors early on in her career, commencing at age 17, with seven regional Gold Key awards and two national Gold Medal awards from the prestigious Scholastic Art and Writing Awards, her acceptance into these juried national exhibitions earned her representation at the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. in 2003 and at the Diane von Furstenberg Gallery in New York in 2004. By 2005, she was granted a National ARTS in the Visual Arts Award from the National Foundation for Advancement in the Arts (now the National YoungArts Foundation), an honor that ranks recipients in the top 2% of American talent. The winning entries were exhibited at the Margulies Collection at the Warehouse, Miami. In 2008, Kowch received the Best of Show Purchase Award from the Northbrook Library’s annual juried international exhibition, and in the same year received a Faculty Award from the College for Creative Studies.

Kowch’s highly acclaimed paintings have since gone on to garner multiple Best of Show awards in various juried exhibitions of national and international caliber, and she exhibits full-time in solo and group exhibitions at museums and galleries, including RJD Gallery, London and Rome’s Dorothy Circus Gallery, the Muskegon Museum of Art, where her solo retrospective Dream Fields debuted in 2013, the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) Jacksonville, the Grand Rapids Art Museum, ArtPrize, Art Basel Miami, the Los Angeles Art Show, ArtHamptons, and SCOPE NYC, who, in 2012, named Kowch one of the top 100 emerging artists in the world. She is also regularly featured in and on the front covers of several national and international publications. Kowch’s works can all be found in both public and museum collections, such as the R.W. Norton Art Gallery Museum, of the R.W. Norton Art Foundation, Muskegon Museum of Art, Grand Rapids Art Museum, Northbrook Library in Northbrook, Illinois, and in significant private collections worldwide.

Kowch resides and works in Michigan, where she paints full time, and enjoys giving back to the creative community, having served as an adjunct professor at the College for Creative Studies, and juror of various art showcases. She is represented exclusively by RJD Gallery.