Andrea’s Kowch paintings have been compared favorably to the work of Andrew Wyeth, the American master who explored rural settings and the people who were drawn to the quiet edges of nature. Kowch shares his interests and yet takes it further by pushing into fantasy, surrealism and allegory. Her works have a reverent kind of magic that feels real and yet exists within another plane of being.
Andrea Kowch with her new book, Across a Rural Skyline: The Art of Andrea Kowch.
These themes have been celebrated in her work and studio for nearly two decades, and now in her new book, Across a Rural Skyline: The Art of Andrea Kowch, available through RJD Gallery in Romeo, Michigan. Two versions of the book—a standard edition and also a limited first-edition, hand-signed version in a slipcase—will go on sale on August 1. (Full disclosure: I wrote an essay for the book.)
Kowch spoke to us about the book, her career and her artwork. Enjoy.
The process of making a book requires reflection of your career and your past work. Is this something you enjoy doing? What did you discover about your earlier career as you looked back on it?
The book became the natural and necessary step after completing many works of art over the course of the last 18 years. When the paintings all quickly sold, inquiries followed for hand-signed and numbered prints for collectors demanding an opportunity to own a reference of what they could no longer have. As these sold out, and demand continued to rise higher, we then provided the second unframed editions. As the marketplace further expanded and grew globally, numerous collectors and art lovers wanted us to create a book. It was a challenging and overwhelming undertaking at times, but we felt the need to answer the call and deliver on it. People consistently express their desire to attain a comprehensive reference of my chronological journey, filled with my personal insights and stories behind the sequence of creativity over these many years, and the opportunity to add it to their personal libraries to enjoy at leisure.
Nightfall, 2025, acrylic, 10 x 10 in.
The personal nostalgia that sets in when looking back on some of my first significant paintings can be remarkable. While completing college, I began creating earnestly. The liberty and vivacity of youth, lure of uncharted horizons, and dreams as wide and expansive as the fields I painted, it was a time I look back on with fondness, when foundations were being established and everything was unknown and on the threshold of new beginnings. Not knowing where the chips would fall, but giving it my all in the hope of living my dream as an artist, it reminds me of the beauty of the journey, and I believe it is important that one reflects upon their early efforts after nearly 20 years of learning, growth and development. Fortunately, my greater vision was enhanced by the emotional encouragement of my family and in working with a gallery that very early on deeply admired and fully respected my art. This reassurance was pivotal in my ability to develop my art and take the risks necessary to achieve the works I now paint.
Then there are my collectors and the public who continue to support, share, and encourage it forward, for whom I always carry a heart full of gratitude for each and every one of. The positive reception and interactions never cease to be a constant source of motivation.
Like all artists, your life has changed a lot since the early days of your studio. Most notably, you’ve become a mother. Do any of your earlier pieces have new meaning to you from where you sit in 2025?
Like a song, interpretations evolve over time and come to reflect one’s current state of being at any given time. That is the beauty and wonder of art. It’s always a mirror to one’s present experience. There is, and always will be a certain level of searching, unrest and subsequent development, but to me that is the point of it all. There always needs to be a reason to express oneself through their art form. And while my priorities have naturally shifted from the former ones, they’re still in essence there, and the same, just manifesting and being achieved in fresh, more self-aware, and deeper, analytical ways.
No Turning Back, 2008, acrylic, 24 x 48 in.
Many prior works resonate with me as I go through life, taking on new, additional layers of meaning, mood and mystery, the hallmarks of my artmaking. These are works that almost shapeshift to meet and match me in the current moment. In the Distance is one of them, where looking back on it now, and in the context of personal and current world events I’ve since come to notice that it also subconsciously captures many aspects of my Ukrainian heritage; the wheat, the bread, the farming, the proud, hardworking men and women and their historic respect and efforts toward their land, families and nature. An Invitation, Reunion, Tempest, Beyond Here and Apple of my Eye, are also ones that seem to evolve in how they speak to me over time.
The flipside to that question: What kind of themes are you interested in now that were not possible for you when you first started painting?
From where I am now, I find there is an enhanced ability to observe life and interpret it from a place of greater inner wisdom and serenity, and to look deeper into the same subject matter and rediscover it in ways that would not have been possible earlier, simply due to having reached higher levels of knowledge, consciousness and deeper, multilayered perspectives that I have naturally gained and accumulated over the years. I suppose in the past a lot of the themes were very impassioned, edgy, and direct in a way that differs somewhat to the current moment and that is precisely what made those early works what they are. They transmit a special magic that, to me, cannot quite be repeated or replicated.
Unexpected Company, 2008, acrylic, 36 x 60 in.
Time and experience bring a type of stillness with them, and I’ve felt myself turning a corner in so many ways at this time in my life. Motherhood humbles and brings forth powerful transformation and growth in ways one cannot imagine until they experience it for themselves. I am finding my work now taking on a more quiet, reflective state, which is introspective and healing, because that has been my own inner experience these past couple years. There is a strong desire to be in the present moment as much as I possibly can, to experience the nuances of everyday life alongside my child and relish in it with him as he sees it through his eyes; to experience and savor these precious moments that are all too fleeting. Metamorphosis and transformation seem to be common themes of my life as a whole. The inner fire is still there and being rekindled, the dreams continue, and what came before still always beckons, inspires, and stimulates me to follow new visions and versions of what needs to be expressed.
Tell me about the two newest paintings.
Thaw and Nightfall are two of my most recent paintings, with Thawactually having been formed in theory many years ago, and begun much later. Inspired by an actual place in northern Michigan that I have frequented for over 20 years and the lighthouse that has sat on its shore since 1876 are the driving subjects of this painting. I spent many introspective moments in the solitude and quiet presence of this lighthouse on Tawas Point, observing wildlife and wandering the snowy trails leading to the outer shores of the frozen bay in winter. Bald eagles were my only witnesses, watching and imparting spiritual wisdom and symbolic significance. I sought to conjure a mood here that carried that sense of introspection and enchantment, with the reclining figure dreamily merging with the contour of a melting snowdrift.
Thaw, 2024, acrylic, 24 x 30 in.
Lying wistful upon a waking earth, the rugged landscape peels back the layers of its frozen slumber. It appears that spring is approaching, warming the chill within the remote setting and woman that occupies it. She passively gazes into our eyes, leading us to meditate on seasons passed and permitting this renewed sense of warmth to be felt. The heaviness of the snow melts away, the water, no longer frozen, pulses again in the distance, seagulls glide overhead, diving, screeching, scavenging, and going about their wild ways. Nature has awakened for another season, reborn and swirling with new life. The lighthouse is partially revealed, weathered, but resolute and sturdy, tucked away below the sloping hill, inviting feelings of stillness, in the way one feels peace after overcoming a test of the soul. From beneath the weight of nostalgia, a fresh chapter begins, the mutable seasons emphasized by an undercurrent of enigmatic wonder. She is the archetypal heroine, one with nature, haunted by the immensity of time, but fully present in the moment—and reawakened to all the wondrous magic that is yet to come.
Across a Rural Skyline: The Art of Andrea Kowch
Nightfall also suggests this feeling of quiet peace, with its landscape integrating terrain both real and imagined. The trees in the foreground are all modeled after the rows of majestic sugar maples lining the way to my home, sharing centuries between them at over 100-plus years old. The moon that rises behind them, glowing through their branches just as it does in reality, is always a mystical and magical sight to behold and I wanted to express that feeling here. The middle ground of the composition includes scenery of a local farm. The rolling, wooded hills beyond are fragments of memories born from the scenic road trips taken to the east coast at various points of my life. In a strong sense, these two recent paintings are firmly tied to a sense of place. Real, experienced spaces both inside and outside of me, and eras that make up the fabric of my life and its continuous journey. They impart a sense of tradition, roots, memories, and fundamental moments of being, and these are just some of the things entwined within these two works. A meditation on the environment more so than the heroines within them, this is something I will potentially be exploring further in new paintings that are currently in progress in my studio. —
Across a Rural Skyline: The Art of Andrea Kowch
With essays by Michael Clawson and Pam Coffman
144 pages
Standard edition and limited first-edition, hand-signed versions in special slipcase are available starting August 1.
Unicorn Publishing Group
www.rjdgallery.com
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