Nomi Rowe presents a photography exhibition titled, «A year in 1960’s India» documenting a year of travels in the country. The exhibition will be showcased at 6x6 Centre for Photography, in Limassol and opens officially on Friday, 13 June 2025 at 7p.m. The exhibition will remain open until June 20th.
Visiting Hours:
Monday – Friday: 11:00 - 14:30
Weekend: 14:30 - 18:00
Artist’s statement:
“After completing my degree in painting and sculpture at St Martin’s School of Art, I worked for a short period as an international telephonist to earn some money. Due to family circumstances, we spoke English, French and German at home, which qualified me for this job. Then I set off with a back-pack and a change of clothes, my sketchbook, pen, pencils and my compact 35mm film camera. I travelled slowly through Europe, the Middle East, Iran, Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Africa. Although unplanned and unintentional, this all took over four years without my return home to London.
While I was in India for a year in 1963-64 in my mid-twenties, travelling, painting and meditating, bobbing along like a cork on the surface of the sea, I would sit and sketch people on buses and trains, but mostly in cafes. Often someone would invite me to come and stay in their home to make portraits of their family members. For Indians being alone is unusual, except on a spiritual retreat or pilgrimage or social misfortune and they were always very hospitable, protective and generous towards me. In Bombay, I became friends with a circle of people, including the well-known artist, Jatin Das, who helped to arrange an exhibition of my art work.
I have continued to photograph throughout my life, whenever something or someone catches my eye. In addition, I use photos as an aide-memoire to supplement sketching for my art work, such as the twelve-panel frieze based on observations along Dasoudi Beach. I have also incorporated screen prints of family photos in a stained-glass art piece. Nowadays, although I have kept and treasure my Olympus film camera, like most people I habitually carry my mobile, with its excellent digital camera.”
About Nomi Rowe:
Nomi Rowe is an artist and an author. She is a graduate of the St Martins School of Art in painting and sculpture (1961). She holds a BA in Anthropology and Archaeology from Durham University (1969), where she worked as a tutor while researching for her PhD in the Anthropology Department; she also taught art in the Extra-Mural department (1969-1972). Nomi Rowe was an activist and part of “The Women’s Lobby Group," which helped to get “The Equal Pay Act” through Parliament in 1970, despite stiff opposition. [The Equal Pay Act 1970 was the first piece of UK legislation which enshrined the right to pay equality between women and men.] In 1981 Nomi Rowe founded and was the director of an art gallery, “Off the Hook,” in Primrose Hill, London. She studied under visionary artist Cecil Collins at the City Literary Institute, in London (1983-88). In 1994, she acquired an Advanced Diploma in Stained Glass, from St Martins College of Art and Design, in London. She has participated in a number of art shows in the U.K. – both group and solo. Nomi Rowe has worked in publishing and has most notably devised the book In Celebration of Cecil Collins: Visionary Artist & Educator (Paul Holberton Publishing 2008). The book is a centenary portrait of the visionary British artist and influential teacher, for which Nomi Rowe made and edited 100 interviews eliciting the memories and reflections of his collectors, friends, students, gallerists and museum curators, including the Tate Director, Nicholas Serota. Nomi continues to produce art and uses photography to complement her artistic journey.