Earthworms

Earthworms were one of Rowena’s enduring loves. She returned to this theme, again and again, over the years, continually reimagining their forms - moving between oils, gouache and watercolour, and even shaping earthworms sign out of clay. As a farmer and vegetable grower, soil lay at the heart of her understanding of the world, and earthworms were its makers: the unseen labourers, endlessly turning, aerating and creating the ground from which all life rises. In her work, they are humble and elemental, celebrated not for their visibility but for their fundamental, sustaining role beneath our feet.