Guggi (born Derek Rowen) is an
avant-garde
The avant-garde (; In 'advance guard' or ' vanguard', literally 'fore-guard') is a person or work that is experimental, radical, or unorthodox with respect to art, culture, or society.John Picchione, The New Avant-garde in Italy: Theoretical ...
Irish artist, once a member of the
goth/
post-punk
Post-punk (originally called new musick) is a broad genre of punk music that emerged in the late 1970s as musicians departed from punk's traditional elements and raw simplicity, instead adopting a variety of avant-garde sensibilities and non-r ...
band
Virgin Prunes alongside his close friend
Gavin Friday.
Guggi was born in
Dublin
Dublin (; , or ) is the capital and largest city of Ireland. On a bay at the mouth of the River Liffey, it is in the province of Leinster, bordered on the south by the Dublin Mountains, a part of the Wicklow Mountains range. At the 2016 ...
in 1959. He grew up with and remains best friends with
U2's
Bono
Paul David Hewson (born 10 May 1960), known by his stage name Bono (), is an Irish singer-songwriter, activist, and philanthropist. He is the lead vocalist and primary lyricist of the rock band U2.
Born and raised in Dublin, he attended ...
.
In 1984 he left the Virgin Prunes to pursue his passion for art. Since then he has exhibited his minimalistic paintings and representations of bowls and vessels in various galleries, including the Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York, the Osborne Samuel Gallery in London and the Solomon Gallery in Dublin.
Guggi is the older brother of Peter Rowen, a photographer who as a child appeared on many of U2's release covers, and Jonny Rowen, a musician. Another brother, Trevor (Strongman), played bass in the Virgin Prunes.
He lives in Dublin with his wife Sibylle and their four sons along with one son from a previous long-term relationship.
References
External links
*
Virgin Prunes
Irish rock musicians
20th-century Irish painters
21st-century Irish painters
Irish male painters
Bono
Musicians from Dublin (city)
Living people
1959 births
Virgin Prunes members
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