In conjuction with

I took a few years break from curating exhibitions and events in Cardiff to follow my Artsci Creativity and tutoring. However, Sativaworx approach me a short while ago and invited me to work in conjunction with them to create THE Penelope Rose GALLERY, so how could I refuse?!

The first exhibition is a retrospective of work that became the ignition for my Artsci creations and collaborations. Following on from this there will be an elite selection of rising stars local and international adorning the gallery walls and space with their creations.

The official opening party will be announced shortly.

A little about me....

I am a Artsci Creator, Curator and Educator based in Cardiff and the Vale, primarily focused on what is known in the public eye as “artsci”: creating works of art that explore scientific concepts and find new ways to imagine, explain and represent concepts that can be very difficult to communicate through graphs, terminology and statistics alone. Simply put: it blends scientific data with imagination and creativity to celebrate cutting edge ideas at the frontiers of our exploration of the universe in which we find ourselves. It all began with the work that can be seen in this retrospective exhibition.  

Commissioned by academic departments in Wales and England; the University College London’s Cosmoparticle Initiative , Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy and 'New Signals' project for Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Centre (CUBRIC), creating large-scale paintings, videos and illustrations exploring concepts ranging from a variety of scientific fields: particle physics, cosmology, dark matter, gravitational waves, geometry, the golden ratio, mathematical patterns, infinity, and most recently, neuroscience and consciousness.

My work has been published in Physics World, CERN Courier, CCQ, and a wide variety of academic and institutional blogs. I work through a mixture of mediums; video, audio, watercolour, acrylic, collage, sketching, bilateral ink and pen, digital art, video, and oil on canvas.

In recent years my work has primarily focused on magnetism, particle physics, cosmology and neuroscience, I am not limited to any scientific field, and am passionate about meeting new researchers, exploring new ideas, and delivering innovative commissions and education programmes.

My methodology for commissions in Artsci is to first immerse myself in the complexity of the research, ideas and data by conversing intimately with the scientists to fully dive into their thoughts and ideas. Through consultation with collaborators; we form a specific brief and produce a satisfying outcome for all. It is through the sharing of ideas that I begin to visualize an Artsci-work, and the seed is sown in my brain. Over a short time, as the thoughts turn through my mind and the seed germinates and grows, I start to intuitively feel how the Artsci-work or education activity will form. My creative process essentially involves defining the scientific research and distilling it into an elegant and comprehensible simplicity.

My training is purely artistic – I received my Ba Hons in Fine Art from the Cardiff School of Art and Design in 2001, and then completed Professional Graduate Certificate in Education in Further Education at the University of Wales in Newport in 2006. I tutor people of all ages and abilities in life drawing and techniques in watercolour, drawing, acrylic and oil, for Vale Courses and Llanover Hall Arts Centre Cardiff.

Over the years I have been increasingly drawn to explore ideas from some of the most technically complex, mathematically intricate and truly mind-boggling revelations from the towers and laboratories of academia. Perhaps I seek to merge art and science to calm the tubulations of the ultimate puzzle – what does it mean to exist – and to ponder and discover science’s ultimate promise: What next?


For more information contact:       info@peneloperosecowley.com

 Picture: left to right - Jean, Filomina, Me, Otobong, Lloyd and Bill

National Museum of Wales, Cardiff, Wales

My art students and I had the pleasure of meeting the Artes Mundi 2019 nominee earlier today, Otobong Nkanga. She took the time to explain her beautiful, intriguing, delicate amazing work. Of a levitating rock, a massive tapestry with Milkyway space dust explosions, images of tear gas combustion and riot control water jets, a magical tree,  map of the world with all the borders and a journey of time. Full of textures and deep meaning of the macrocosm and microcosm of human interactions and collisions, the drama of the universe and the drama of the human in equal measure.

I was overwhelmed by her charisma and wealth of knowledge, skill, and exuberance of this wonderful woman. I feel so honoured and humbled. My students listened intently and ask questions about her work Otobong was eloquent and engaging explaining in detail the methods she used, expressing the limited colour palette of 8 threads that could be transformed into over 2 million different varieties of shades, tones and textured weaves with the use of modern loom digital technology.

Otobong accounted on the history of tapestry in Nigeria and the expression of power in the weave. Of the connections to the Silk Road, the threads of silk woven into the power stories of families and the hierarchal meaning behind the quality and feeling of the materials used. Of modern materials and the transformation this brings for all to have intricate patterns.

Otobong has a wealth of knowledge from the ancient crafts to transcendent concepts in the electromagnetic physic phenomena finding a balance between - now, then and the future.

Artes Mundi 8 has outdone it's self this year. I was suprised and enthralled by all of  the work and Otobong Nkanga was most certainly well deserving to win, which I thought she had. We all congratulated her, it may have been a misunderstanding but either way to be exhibited and nominated would still be great I'm sure, but I wish she had won. It truly was my favourite, she had me at levitating rock... anyone who knows me, knows I love things that float on a magnetic field, merging art and science in all the ways I love, she's an inspiration. Just incredible.

Apichatpong Weerasethakul was the winner with a simple, atmospheric video work. As Bill said, 'it was very calming'.

The names of all the nominees are: Anna Boghiguian (Canada/Egypt), Bouchra Khalili (Morocco/France), Otobong Nkanga (Nigeria/Belgium), Trevor Paglen (USA), Apichatpong Weerasethakul (Thailand). Read more about all of them herehttp://www.artesmundi.org/exhibitions-prizes/artes-mundi-8

Artes Mundi 8 is on till May is well worth seeing.

My students and I also saw the Kyffin Williams exhibition which we enjoyed which I will discuss more another time for now here are some pics from our visit today.

Penelope Rose Cowley x

  (original post 2/25/2016) Yesterday the three paintings for Cardiff School of Physics and Astronomy department were put up on the wall in the new coffee area for permanent display. It's wonderful to see these three settled in their new home. When Dr. Dan Read and I first met we were in the Pier Head building for Cardiff Science Festival 3 years ago. He had his marvelous magnetic demonstrations and I had some paintings up displaying Diffusion Tensor Images of my brain. A year later I'm down in the basement Labs of the Physic department with some canvases and paint and Dan with his liquid nitrogen setting up the Messiner  effect, showing me the 'monster machine', explaining about Magnetic Monopoles and Cane, Charlie and Danny Phd student popping in demonstrating all sorts such the Levatron , see the video below its very cool! I'm very much looking forward to continuing working with the department and yesterday I met Prof. Steve Eales, Dr. Richard Lewis and Prof. Mark Hannam.  We discuss the colliding of black holes and gravity waves and this may well lead to some very interesting new cutting edge artsci work... Richard briefly explained about capturing the trails left by neutrinos and I'd love to talk with him more about this.  
Emily Garsides wrote article on the Wales Art Review to read more about the paintings click the link below. 
Dr. Dan Read and I will be continuing to work together in collaboration with the 'New Signals' project for the new Cardiff University Brain Research Imaging Center CUBRIC more on this later...... 

http://www.walesartsreview.org/art-meets-science-magnetic-monopoles/

(7/14/2014)

Article:

In Awe of Physics-

Painting in the Basement Lab, Cardiff School of Physic and Astronomy 1st July 2014 and 8th July.

Dr. Dan Read and I’s plan for day 1 (and day 2 the following week) was to set up the Meissner Effect and paint in situ. I brought with me my materials and equipment- Two freshly ground canvases, 3ft by 3ft, shimmering with washes of silver and paynes grey acrylic. A white box of jars and gold, silver, copper, white and prepared mixtures of shimmering dark greys paints, long purple brushes, sketchbook, notebook, one right handed calligraphy pen and one left handed calligraphy, a few pencils and realms of science papers containing information about Magnetic Monopoles and Kagome lattices and papers on Diffusion Tensor imaging all written all or in part by Cardiff University Professors and Doctors.      

I had been waiting for this day since I first set eyes upon the Meissner Effect demonstration at the Cardiff Science Festival 2013 by Dan and his team. Dan and I where that day exhibiting opposite each other in the Cardiff Pierhead building. Dan with the physics and I with paintings based on, Diffusion Tensor Imaging of my brain, these are derived from Magnetic Resonance imaging scans conducted at CUBRIC in 2012 by Prof. Derek Jones and Dr. Silvia de Santis. Our love for superconducting magnetic materials certainly resonated with us both. 

Dan had just finished setting up ready for the public who would be arriving in 10 minutes at 10am Saturday 20th July 2013. I took the opportunity introduce myself and take a closer look at the strange cloud cascading from a small curious dish on his table. I walked towards him stood, with gleaming smiling eyes as if he held some great secret about this world and I now knelt at his table to be at eye level with what I now know to be is the Meissner and (*a name missing here*) Effect. 

It's difficult to express this first moment. At first glance I thought my eyes betrayed me. A small cube dark in matter tinged with frost seemed to be levitating above a small round disk; this was set in a pool of the strange ethereal fluid substance with a cold mist dancing evaporating like lazy smoke flowing off the table descending with gravity. Dan caught my attention with a pair of plastic teasers entering my filed of vision as he genteelly tapped the cube and set it rotating, floating before my eyes on it’s axis.

The effect was rather superbly overwhelming. Dan explained the cube was not ‘levitated’ as such but rather held in a Magnetic Field where by the cube is superconducting when very cold ethereal cascading liquid Nitrogen (77k) cools. Here the cube is in the process- ‘expulsion of magnetic flux’.

Since then Dan and I agreed to plan a few days where by, I will set up my canvases and paint in suit, this incredible and delightful demonstration of physics. The feeling of Awe seizes to be depleted and I am continuously struck by the mesmerising Meissner Effect, I was not the only one.

 As soon as the demonstration was set up the basement lab on the 1 st July 2014, Dan’s students; Charlie, Daniel and Cane all starting taking pictures and looking closely at the phenomena. They are as intrigued as I am. It goes to prove that it never seizes to amaze. As I began to paint, conversations bubbled about all manner of super conducting magnetic materials and their properties. We all shared ideas of about all sorts from- vacuums, ‘Stargates’ and future technologies, stories prevailed about my Grandfathers quest to create a Perpetrol motion and the trouble with friction. Cane shared conversations he has had with his, Grandfather, his Dad and brother about ethics of his science. What if something you invented was used to cause good and bad? His brother would ask...

I came to understand these magical people intend to offer the world their ideas, theories and inventions to this world; to be delivered unhindered, peer reviewed, tested and expressed through an infinity variety of applications. That the world will in turn use, alter, enhance and change at will all of their potential outcomes. One thing is clear Magnetism is the future! We all agreed upon that and ‘Magnetic Monopoles’ will probably play a central role.

In the flow of our discussion Cane said hang on a moment ‘I’ll just go and get my levatron’, (this made me smile, its not everyday you here that! My daughter Jasmin aged 10 gives a statement below, about this which best explains it) he bought it in to the lab and I set up the second canvas and quickly began to paint this too as the inspiration poured out. He set up 3 more demonstrations all together. The afternoon continued; liquid nitrogen was topped up again and again with a frilling sense of mischief and awe by Dr. Dan Read and I felt like I was swimming in a dream that mingled and tangled with a tangible future.      

‘Magnetic Monopoles’ these words are unlikely companions aren’t they! On the 2 day I focus on the ‘Monster Machine’! It stands in off centre in the lab, almost finished looking grand and beautiful nearly touching the ceiling. Dan and his students have been working on this since last summer.

I remember seeing it when I came for a quick visit last September. Now it is twice the size, and its beauty grows. Charlie explained- It will be use to evaporate premollys (magnetic materials) that will rise up inside to be assimilated on the lithographed Silicon (and eventually Graphene) membranes created using the electron photon laser. A Kagome lattice, that looks like a honeycomb is lithographed and the evaporated premollys settle into place and cooled from above and heated to extremes from below. Observation is possible through a channel looking into the vacuum. I find the whole beast in enchanting, I image the path of the evaporating premollys  dancing up inside to be quenched in disorder, examined with the results recorded by Charlie.

I am creating three art works on canvas that express the observed, imagined  and assimilated. These will be exhibit at the Senedd, Cardiff Bay between 10-4 Saturday 19th & 20th July 2014 along with DTi Artwork of my Brain and Dr. Dan Read with his students showing the demonstration for all to see. To read more, see images of the lab, studio and progression of artwork go to www.massivedynamicart.com    

Statements: My daughter, Jasmin Gale and Richrad Higlett of Cardiff Contemporary Art Festival 2014.

My mum Penelope Rose is doing some painting on science and I went to see them but I got distracted by a spining top floating in mid air and I figured it out. I'll tell you when you put a spinning top down it just falls over but if you spin it, it stays up right. The spinning top has a magnet south facing up and a big platform with a magnet north facing up so the two magnets repel themselves so it floats. There was so much stuff it was so cool and I am not the sort of person to be impressed easily but it was so AMAZING!

Jasmin Rose Gales aged 10 daughter of Penelope Rose Cowley, describes her experiences of visiting the Dr. Dan Read's Basement Lab on the  1st July 2014 at Cardiff University School of Physics and Astronomy 

Artists and Scientists are different elements. The artists offer or makes questions....the scientists generate answers. Each sees the 'object' differently, a table stands in between as the buffer and the object, a glass perhaps is placed on top, the two elements face each other, observing the glass from different perspectives.  

Penelope is awe struck by the experiments and chooses to paint the demonstrations in the basement lab in situ. One may ask why paint the phenomenon’s when they could be documented through photography or video? 

Painting is the longest way to drag out the moment and perhaps the only way to fully appreciate the wonder. 

Richard Higlett - Conversations at BayArt with Penelope Rose Cowley, Cardiff Bay,10th July 2014

'Infinite LIGO dreams' will be unveiled tomorrow 25th Nov 4-6pm at event the celebrate opening of the new coffee area in Cardiff Physics department. The painting will a be new addition to the to adorn the walls along to join three other paintings inspired by my time spent in Dr. Dan Read's Lab back in 2014.
Articles:
Cardiff University
http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/news/view/520304-artwork-inspired-by-gravitational-wave-discovery
Physic World
http://blog.physicsworld.com/2016/11/24/the-beauty-of-gravitational-waves/


Infinite LIGO Dreams
Oil on Canvas
60" by 48"
2016

  On the 24th February 2016 I was in the new coffee area at the Cardiff School of Physic and Astronomy. I had created 3 paintings regarding Dr. Dan Read's work concerning magnetism. 

(original post from 1/19/2017)
The artwork commissioned by Cardiff University Physics and Astronomy Department during the Summer 2016. Has this month been published in the CERN Courier Jan/Feb issue 2017. 

http://cerncourier.com/cws/download/Jan-Feb17

Thanks to the Senior communications officer from Cardiff University, Michael Bishop who created the blog:  

http://blogs.cardiff.ac.uk/physicsoutreach/2016/11/25/new-artwork-inspired-gravitational-wave-discovery/

Highlighting the artwork commissioned for the ‘Rest Frame’ room in the department and the discovery of the gravitational waves. The detection of gravitational waves by the twin aLIGO detectors, announced in February last year, is one of the most significant discoveries in physics for decades.

It was around this time back last February 2016 that I was introduced to Prof. Mark Hannam a binary black expert. When some other artworks were being hung in the department inspired by magnetic monopoles that I had created in Dr. Dan Reads lab a year or so before in the summer of 2014.  

Mark spoke of the new discovery of Gravitational Waves from LIGO. We discussed that it would be fantastic to create an artwork to celebrate this momentous event in our history.  In the following weeks a meeting was arranged with Chris North and Edward Fauchon-Jones along with Jason Charles Roger our sound engineer. We decided that I would produce a large oil painting reflecting some of the data mixed in with imagination of our universe’s binary black holes, pulsars, neutron stars and other elements of space. Coupled with this we created a video/audio piece integrating the development of the painting and data provided by the university along with raw audio recordings and predictions of the Gravitational Wave signals. Jason and I worked together to produce the music on the video combining the raw audio with 'spoken word' narrations about the new discovery and beats to tie all the visual and audio together.  


Michael Bishop published the blog to announce the long awaited opening of the ‘Rest Room’ and the painting was unveiled on the 25th November. Matt Griffin Head of School, Stephen Eales, Mark Hannam and myself gave a short speeches to a crowded room and then the blue paper covering the artwork was torn off to be unveiled, it was a fantastic evening.

Micheal Bishop spread the news and Physics World created an article too and he also contacted Lisa Gibson Production Editor, CERN Courier who then contacted me to express that CERN Courier would like to use the image to accompany an article in the Jan/Feb 2017 issue. Well I must say this is a wonderful honour and I so very glad that people all over the world can enjoy this art inspired by one of the most impressive discovery of the decade.

‘CERN Courier’ is available now for free to download, simply click the link and read all about the lastest news-

http://cerncourier.com/cws/download/Jan-Feb17 

Up Coming commissions-
'The interconnection between particle physics and cosmology' for UCL
and
'New Signals- exploring macro and micro structure of the brain' for CUBRIC. 

2017 is going to be a busy year for Art and Science.

'Infinite LIGO dreams' Giclees £144  click here to buy

Once I started playing around with Zazzle a bit more I found I could easily make the artworks available on mugs, tote bags, well all sorts. Then I worked out putting the products into collections and thought it would be nice add a collection of all the artworks and designs that I have not put here on this website.

Also, and this is great, you are able to personalise any of the products. One my customers wanted a jumper with words  Dragon Slayer on the back of it, so thats what she did and it took about 2 mins.And delviever in about a week to some where in America.

Here is a link to my product page click here 

 Or simply click through to the collection on Zazzle-

Beltane Buzz T-Shirt
I thought I make this for Lowri Davies who asked me to create Beltane Buzz the original image can be seen here - https://www.peneloperosecowley.com/news/beltane-buzz I have changed it for a more transcendental dream like feel. I hope you like it. 'Beltane Buzz' was commission by an organizer of the Beltane Buzz Festival- Lowri Davies and we worked together on the concept. We both thought it was great that I was also born in Braintree all seems to make so much sense... Lowri Davies 11th July 2016 - 'A lover of all things tree-like, a focus on that first burst of light every Beltane and a keen interest in neuro, it's only a matter of time until you can see its patterns in nature and throughout science. I wanted to commission a painting to incorporate science, nature's structures, neuronal networks, trees, Beltane and so much more. All in one painting.... Micro to Macro. Not an easy task for most! It arrived last week! I can't resist but to share it! I feel so lucky to have worked alongside a truly gifted Artist with an outstanding understanding and in-depth, broad knowledge of science. I will no doubt look at this painting for many years to come and continue to see different things and develop my own understanding of biology, neuroscience and it's symmetry in nature. Penny I absolutely love it, and will be eternally grateful.' Many thanks to Lowri for the inspiration and encouragement! I loved creating this commission for you and now everyone can enjoy it in this format too. Thx Babe! www.peneloperosecowley.com 

The video is regarding the gift of quotes sent to me by my good friend and artist Caroline Richards. They are an inspiration and the video is showing the development of layering, compositions of words upon the words and how these transform into the artists silhouetted against the light of their wisdom. This is my way of expressing the absorption and assimilation of their words in this moving image art piece.