Ron Kowalke
Birth Date: November 8, 1936
Death Date: February 26, 2021
Artist Gallery
Ron Kowalke was born on November 8, 1936 in Chicago, Illinois. He attended Chicago Vocational High School on the south side of the city and after graduation in 1954, enrolled as a BFA candidate at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the University of Chicago academic program. He accepted an art scholarship from Rockford College in 1956, graduated in 1959 and went on for an MFA degree in 1960 from Cranbrook Academy in Michigan. Kowalke’s teaching career began as an art instructor at Northern Illinois University and shifted in 1960 to the Swain School of Design located in New Bedford, Massachusetts. In 1969, he accepted a full time teaching position in the Art Department of the University of Hawaii. He is a full professor in the painting and drawing program and teaches courses ranging from beginning drawing to graduate painting. Ron Kowalke lives in Kailua on the island of Oahu. “In considering the nature of creativity, I have found a place in my nature that constantly questions, explores, invents, builds, destroys and rebuilds upon those processes of experimentation, technical experience and daring. I dance and play with images and trust the creative process. In the doing, in the leaping into the unknown, into the abyss of birthing soil, wet with the juice of danger, knowing further that the journey is ripe with twists, turns, detours, trickery, illusion, jokes, threats, and brings both anger and joy. I trust my process. I am fearless in the studio. It is an arena for struggle, flight, brain bending concepts, visual games and attitude. Holding on to a vision of beauty in the shadows, and healing through the pain. The joy of working, questioning, puzzling, manipulating shapes and colors, and mastering the medium, is the key to be being bent in the heat while splashing the images with acid, honey, mud, gems and ancient healing oils. My mind travels in a war between heaven and earth with my hands and heart trembling with excitement. I try again, repeat, read, watch, and flounder in the labyrinth of a secret voice and honor code that is braced with knowing that personal freedom is that potion that brings strength, stamina, courage, vision, and a true calling to service as an artist.”