Let's start from today and walk backwards
2025
Thank you
Work lives in private collections across Montana, Florida, California, Illinois, New Jersey, Texas, New York, Washington, Hawaii, Pennsylvania, Laos, South Africa, Canada, Singapore, France, Germany, United Kingdom, Hong Kong, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand.
2024
Fatherhood
No art I make will ever be the same. It will forever be entwined with a deep sense of purpose, overflowing love, and a vigorous desire to make this world a better place. I want to share everything. To write a book on Mum and how great she is, to talk nonstop about how I never knew my heart could feel so much love, how, for the rest of my life, I gladly surrender to something bigger and more important than myself. How the days since she made us a family have been the best days of my life.
2022
In art we trust
Leaving my career to make art full-time was a bold move. Most dreams are bold. I'd begin to create commissions for people all over the globe. My first painting shipped to New York city. Beans counted, I'd lose $2122 to get it there. The first collector is sacred. The experience of being seen, for the first time, through art set in motion things that could not be undone.
2021
Isolation and connection
During the lockdowns of COVID-19, I'd create a live stream of painting. Initially it was for family and friends. Strangers would join in and become friends too. It was in a restaurant storage shed at 2am that a 4-hour stream would reach 650,000 people around the world.
2017
Visual Snow Syndrome
Emerging from a toxic trap of my own making, my vision was set ablaze with a permanent film of shimmering stars. The recipe was a tiny space, lethal fumes and too much ego. You can learn more about Visual Snow here. Initially I was filled with resent and pain. Visual Snow took my ability to easily examine detail and set calm gradients shimmering in my gaze. It took my cherished control away from me, destroying the artist I was. 5 years would go by before I'd learn that the control I'd lost was the very thing holding my art back.
2011
Fine Arts School
Wide eyed and bushy tailed - Off to Fine Arts College, embellished in a handful of scholarships- ready to be an 'artist'. After a streak of A+ grades, I'd drop out after a single year. At this point in my life, I'd never felt so empty. In the proceeding years I'd finish a degree in Art History and Philosophy. This is one of the things that saved me. I was so full of 'how' but barren or 'why'.
2009
My Happy Place
I'd take any excuse to find my way back to the arts department, only leaving it for a bit of drama practice. Singing was also fun but people didn't like that as much as my paintings. Being good at something breeds a certain level of arrogance. I wish I'd learnt more - had I not been so challenging to teach.
1998
Early Beginnings
Each day, five-year-old me would cover the 20 giant glass panels in front of our family home with every idea I could imagine. Every evening, my mother would rinse them clean with a garden hose.
1995
First Painting
It's a cute coincidence that the first word and the first artwork were both 'fish'. I could've been trying to make something else? It's a hard thing to properly verify.
1993
I made it!
In Te Awamutu, the land of proud farmers and abundant country, I joined everyone else on earth. It would be some time before I talked any sense and, even then, many think I've still got a ways to go.
PHONE
+64 27 739 0558
seb@sebgowerart.com
MY MISSION
To lead with emotion, vulnerability and imperfection.
I believe we are all artists - It's my dream to be the spark that spreads that flame.