Standing among his works, 63-year-old Lexington resident Terry Rowlett points out a painting of a red clay landscape. Two women and two dogs standing on the bare landscape are watched by an angel perched on a tree, which stands next to a blue truck.
“That’s definitely a Georgia landscape right there,” Rowlett said.
That painting is shown as part of Rowlett’s exhibit titled Before the End of Time at the Oconee Cultural Arts Foundation (OCAF) now through June 26.
“That’s what it literally means. Before the end of our time on Earth,” Rowlett said. “The generations that surround us, and maybe the human race will eventually fade out, too.”
Rowlett’s work is a commentary on death, but also about interactions between humans, and humans with nature.
“Terry is an accomplished painter in the realm of magical realism,” artist Cheryl Washburn said.
His paintings are concerned with remembrance — preserving moments, people and places before they disappear.
“I see much that enters his life, be it a dream, an interaction with a stranger, or a death of a loved one, take shape and form onto canvas in a mythical fashion,” Washburn said.
Almost all of his works contain people — and dogs — that Rowlett knew in real life. One painting, featuring a group of men sitting in the woods, contains the late Benjamin Myers, who founded 1000 Faces Coffee in Athens.
“He was a good friend of mine,” Rowlett said. “Before he died, I sent him some pictures of him — told him that he was in the show.”
Rowlett also draws inspiration from places he has lived. His works feature natural landscapes representative of places like his home state of Arkansas, his time living in Europe while in the Army, and now Oglethorpe County.
“Oglethorpe is calm to my heart,” Rowlett said.
Rowlett returned to Oglethorpe County after traveling for several years. The paintings featured in Before the End of Time are all works created since that move.
Rowlett received a master’s of fine arts in painting and drawing from the University of Georgia in 1995. His work has also been used on album covers and in magazines such as Harper’s, Juxtapose and Spin. All of his paintings are done in an oil medium, and many of his works reference medieval styles of art.
“They’re like a photograph or little movie of that era, and so I just continued that,” Rowlett said. “That appealed to me.”
Rowlett works out of his Lexington home. He typically balances several projects at once, starting them as the idea appears in his head.
“I have a collection of ideas and things in my imagination that I like, and then something will spark,” Rowlett said. “I’ve got a lot of paintings that are in different stages of completion.”
Most of the paintings take a year to paint, on average, but Rowlett will revisit a work and make changes sometimes years after it was originally completed.
One painting features a skeleton in front of an oceanscape with a banner above stating “RISE.” Rowlett noted the original banner stated “GAZA” as a reference to the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I realized that eventually the war will go away, and I wanted the painting to be more than just about one specific battle,” Rowlett said. “I think the pain will be more relevant for a longer period of time by putting RISE up there.”
Rowlett's paintings portray ordinary people placed in surreal natural scenes, combining personal history with broader commentary on current events. For Rowlett, the exhibit is meant to resonate with viewers on a deeply personal level.
“I hope they see themselves in some of the paintings. See their generation, their struggles in these images,” Rowlett said. “I hope that these paintings reflect some aspect of who they are.”