About the Artist
Roswell Tina Farrow
Tina Marie Farrow was born July 9, 1970, in Roswell, New Mexico — twenty-three years, almost to the day, after the town's famous 1947 UFO incident. The coincidence gave her a stage name before she'd ever painted a canvas, and by adulthood "Roswell" had become inseparable from who she was as an artist. Her family moved constantly through her childhood, settling and resettling across Northern California, New Mexico, Colorado, and Utah — searching, experiencing, and collecting inspiration along the way. She eventually put down roots in Albuquerque, where she'd stay for 23 years, raising her three children. She's since made the connection to her nickname part of her artistic identity: "I like to be 'Alienesque' and experiment like those little Aliens from Roswell and Area 51. It's my personal Art License," she says. In her own words, she sees herself as someone "always on a mission, experimenting with materials to make art, exploring new places and people, watching in fascination — taking all of my surroundings, relationships, cultures, spirituality, large city lights and reflections captive." As a young woman, Roswell wanted to be a fine art collector, and spent years studying art on gallery and museum walls before she ever picked up a brush herself. A lack of finances redirected her — she decided to try her own hand at making art instead of just admiring it. In the mid-1990s she began studying under working artists in Albuquerque at CNM and the Harwood Art Center, and spent much of the years that followed as a commissioned artist, building her craft one client project at a time. In 2010 she landed in Farmington, New Mexico, in the Four Corners region, where she shifted her focus to her own work for the first time — and where she met her husband and art partner, Robb Rocket. Together they spent the better part of a decade building their art careers side by side before falling for Las Vegas, which they've called home since January 2020. She now works from their shared home studio and online gallery, Retro-Mod Studio. In Las Vegas, Roswell found the audience she'd been chasing her whole life. Profiled alongside Robb Rocket in Red Rock Lifestyle magazine in February 2021, she described what she loves most about showing her work in person: "I had a teenager who came in and talked with me about my art, and it was wonderful. I just loved seeing their face light up as they learned more about what I do. It was a true privilege." As she puts it, simply: "Just like those aliens, I will never stop experimenting."
“Neon signage, atomic starbursts, and Eames curves — Roswell channels the optimism of the Googie era through a distinctly modern lens. Working in mixed media and dimensional wall sculpture, she reimagines mid-century shapes as bold, glossy, one-of-a-kind pieces built for today's walls.”
The Process
Inside the Studio
The Painting Process
The Mixed-Media Process Roswell's pieces start as flat shapes — boomerangs, orbitals, starbursts, atomic silhouettes — cut, painted, and finished individually before she assembles them onto a base panel. From there she builds up, adding the dimensional elements that give her work its signature depth: spinning orbit rings, glass and resin accents, mirrored discs, found and recycled mid-century materials worked in alongside wood and metal. The result is meant to shift as you move around it — catching light differently from across the room than it does up close. "I like to be 'Alienesque' and experiment like those little Aliens from Roswell and Area 51. It's my personal Art License," she says of her process — and it shows in how freely she mixes materials that don't traditionally belong together: high-gloss surfaces next to matte wood grain, sparkle and shine layered against flat saturated color. She and Robb Rocket work side by side out of their shared home studio, Retro-Mod, in Las Vegas — two distinct bodies of work built in the same space, each treated as its own one-of-a-kind experiment.
Where to Find the Work
