Rowan Love is a contemporary urban realism painter whose work explores memory, nostalgia and the changing landscapes of small-town New Zealand. Born in Glasgow, Scotland, in 1992, he emigrated to New Zealand with his family at 9 and grew up in Gisborne on the east coast of the North Island.

Rowan developed a passion for drawing from an early age, filling schoolbooks with imagined creatures, dinosaurs, and fantasy worlds. His interest in realism emerged through a desire to better understand light, colour, and form, believing that a convincing understanding of the real world was essential to creating believable imagined ones. During his teenage years, he spent summers working in fields and factories, where he developed an interest in the interplay of nature and industry that informs his practice today.

Working primarily in acrylic and oil paint, Rowan is drawn to industrial sites, agricultural infrastructure, and overlooked working environments. Starting with photographic reference material, he develops compositions that emphasise atmosphere, structure, and light. Rusted silos, factories, and container yards become subjects through which he explores memory, nostalgia, and changing rural and urban environments.

Central to Rowan's practice is a search for beauty in places often considered ordinary, grungy, or oppressive. Many works are inspired by fleeting moments of light, particularly at sunrise and sunset, when industrial structures are transformed by colour and atmosphere. Beneath these images lies a reflection on changing economic and social realities in New Zealand and a personal nostalgia for the optimism associated with earlier periods of regional and industrial life. Rowan’s paintings function as a kind of elegy for a fading version of the New Zealand dream. Rusting silos, ageing factories and industrial sites become symbols of economic and social change. While the works celebrate the hidden beauty of these places, they also acknowledge a sense of loss and nostalgia for a period when the future felt more certain.

Rowan's paintings have been recognised nationally, including winning the Walker & Hall Waiheke Art Award in 2026.