Laura Owens (b. 1970) is known for her ranging and experimental approach to the medium of painting. Her work embraces a breadth of sources from the avant-garde to the popular to the decorative. Owens grew up close to Cleveland in Norwalk, Ohio, and as a teenager spent many hours studying the Cleveland Museum of Art’s encyclopedic collections. Having lived in Los Angeles for the last three decades, she now returns to Cleveland to develop an exhibition in collaboration with high school students participating in the CMA’s Arts Mastery program, Currently Under Curation. They are Jamal Carter, Skylar Fleming, Yomiralyn Gonzalez, Joseph Hlavac, Agatha Mathoslah, and Deonta Steele.
Owens was recently the subject of a mid-career retrospective at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2017–18), which traveled to the Dallas Museum of Art (2018) and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018–19). Other recent solo exhibitions were at the CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2016); Secession, Vienna (2015); and Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2011). Owens studied at the California Institute of the Arts and the Rhode Island School of Design.
Image: “Untitled,” 2016. Laura Owens (b. 1970). Oil, Flashe, screenprinting ink, charcoal, and sand on linen; two panels; each 32.5 x 28 in. Courtesy of the artist; Gavin Brown’s enterprise, New York, Rome; Sadie Coles HQ, London; and Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne
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