Rowena Rooney - Artist & Director of Blue Turtle Design

Rowena Rooney is the inspired multidisciplinary artist behind Blue Turtle Design. Her family is from Savusavu, Vanua Levu, Fiji, and she grew up in West Auckland with her Fijian grandmother Adi Teimumu. Rowena’s passion for visual arts and working with Pasifika communities led her to teaching art in schools, and cultivating a thriving creative practice from her home in Te Atatū.

Before becoming a full-time artist, Rowena was a visual arts specialist at local intermediate schools for over a decade. Towards the end of this chapter in her career, Rowena suddenly lost her mother and her aunt. Being at school became overwhelmingly burdensome following the shattering loss of such pivotal matriarchs. So, Rowena took a year off teaching and started making things.

When bills inevitably needed to be paid, Rowena returned to the classroom as a ceramics specialist. Then COVID-19 arrived on Aotearoa’s doorstep and “surplus” teaching staff, including Rowena, were made redundant. From that point on, she was resolute in her determination to become an artist first and a teacher second.

Confined to her home during the worst of the pandemic, Rowena started painting polynesian flowers on sheets of corrugated iron. This series was popular with Rowena’s clientbase who purchased her works with notable eagerness. Delighted at this response, she stayed the course.

As shaken communities continued to navigate unsettling waves of COVID-19, the Ministry of Education in partnership with the Ministry for Culture and Heritage and Creative New Zealand introduced the Creatives In Schools programme. This was a welcome opportunity for Rowena to bring her art practice into schools and deliver creative experiences for students. She put herself forward and secured work almost immediately.

After years of striving, Rowena is finally able to spend the majority of her time painting and mosaicking in her backyard studio. When she isn’t making commissioned artwork for private clients, you can find her helping children to beautify their learning environments through Creatives In Schools. Occasionally, Rowena puts her teacher hat back on as a reliever, but these days her creativity comes first.