Barbara Owen, "Untitled (Portrait of Anni Albers)"
$2,200. Paint on wood, 18”x 6” x 3”, 2021.
Price does not include shipping. Contact info@collarworks.org for a shipping estimate.
Artist statement
Untitled (Portrait of Anni) is from a new series of shape paintings that reference vaginas, aka mother earth, the goddess, and portals; they are hard edge feminist paintings, experiments in color dynamics, assembled in layers.
This work is inspired by color theorists—Joseph Albers, his book Interaction of Color, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Theory of Colours. Studying Albers has taught me to explore color as a science by keeping a journal noting my optical reactions and partialities. Goethe’s premise is that color is located in the body and inspires philosophical ideas. The oft-used example of staring at the sun and then looking away to see a residual after-image of color proposed that the body perceives color and produces it. I find this last bit fascinating - the body produces color.
HOLD ON! I am annoyed at my acceptance of “what is” rather than questioning so-called facts, as Linda Nochlin states in her essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” I am referring to using Joseph Albers and von Goethe as the only authorities on color theory. When I expanded my investigation, searching for any “WOMEN color theorists,” two came right up. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Mary Gartside both wrote and shared theories similar (and before) Albers and Goethe on color. Same old story.
Artist bio
Barbara Owen is a multidisciplinary artist whose current work link her studio practice with everyday life. She combines abstraction and personal ephemera to interrogate the relationships that break and form between them. Mixing mediums, they function together as a kind of collective memory that transgresses boundaries between one and the other, as a mother, feminist, and artist. She graduated with an interdivisional BA in Sculpture and Poetry from Bennington College, VT, and is a 2020 graduate of MFA Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts, NY. Solo exhibitions include "Simile + Metaphor: Red Necklace" Beard & Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA (2018), "Vivid Forms: Cut Paper and Installation" at the Teaching Gallery, HVCC, Troy, NY (2017). Her work has been featured at Untitled Art Fair, Miami, FL, Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL, Ashville, NC, and Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
$2,200. Paint on wood, 18”x 6” x 3”, 2021.
Price does not include shipping. Contact info@collarworks.org for a shipping estimate.
Artist statement
Untitled (Portrait of Anni) is from a new series of shape paintings that reference vaginas, aka mother earth, the goddess, and portals; they are hard edge feminist paintings, experiments in color dynamics, assembled in layers.
This work is inspired by color theorists—Joseph Albers, his book Interaction of Color, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Theory of Colours. Studying Albers has taught me to explore color as a science by keeping a journal noting my optical reactions and partialities. Goethe’s premise is that color is located in the body and inspires philosophical ideas. The oft-used example of staring at the sun and then looking away to see a residual after-image of color proposed that the body perceives color and produces it. I find this last bit fascinating - the body produces color.
HOLD ON! I am annoyed at my acceptance of “what is” rather than questioning so-called facts, as Linda Nochlin states in her essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” I am referring to using Joseph Albers and von Goethe as the only authorities on color theory. When I expanded my investigation, searching for any “WOMEN color theorists,” two came right up. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Mary Gartside both wrote and shared theories similar (and before) Albers and Goethe on color. Same old story.
Artist bio
Barbara Owen is a multidisciplinary artist whose current work link her studio practice with everyday life. She combines abstraction and personal ephemera to interrogate the relationships that break and form between them. Mixing mediums, they function together as a kind of collective memory that transgresses boundaries between one and the other, as a mother, feminist, and artist. She graduated with an interdivisional BA in Sculpture and Poetry from Bennington College, VT, and is a 2020 graduate of MFA Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts, NY. Solo exhibitions include "Simile + Metaphor: Red Necklace" Beard & Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA (2018), "Vivid Forms: Cut Paper and Installation" at the Teaching Gallery, HVCC, Troy, NY (2017). Her work has been featured at Untitled Art Fair, Miami, FL, Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL, Ashville, NC, and Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.
$2,200. Paint on wood, 18”x 6” x 3”, 2021.
Price does not include shipping. Contact info@collarworks.org for a shipping estimate.
Artist statement
Untitled (Portrait of Anni) is from a new series of shape paintings that reference vaginas, aka mother earth, the goddess, and portals; they are hard edge feminist paintings, experiments in color dynamics, assembled in layers.
This work is inspired by color theorists—Joseph Albers, his book Interaction of Color, and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe’s Theory of Colours. Studying Albers has taught me to explore color as a science by keeping a journal noting my optical reactions and partialities. Goethe’s premise is that color is located in the body and inspires philosophical ideas. The oft-used example of staring at the sun and then looking away to see a residual after-image of color proposed that the body perceives color and produces it. I find this last bit fascinating - the body produces color.
HOLD ON! I am annoyed at my acceptance of “what is” rather than questioning so-called facts, as Linda Nochlin states in her essay “Why Have There Been No Great Women Artists?” I am referring to using Joseph Albers and von Goethe as the only authorities on color theory. When I expanded my investigation, searching for any “WOMEN color theorists,” two came right up. Emily Noyes Vanderpoel and Mary Gartside both wrote and shared theories similar (and before) Albers and Goethe on color. Same old story.
Artist bio
Barbara Owen is a multidisciplinary artist whose current work link her studio practice with everyday life. She combines abstraction and personal ephemera to interrogate the relationships that break and form between them. Mixing mediums, they function together as a kind of collective memory that transgresses boundaries between one and the other, as a mother, feminist, and artist. She graduated with an interdivisional BA in Sculpture and Poetry from Bennington College, VT, and is a 2020 graduate of MFA Art Practice at the School of Visual Arts, NY. Solo exhibitions include "Simile + Metaphor: Red Necklace" Beard & Weil Galleries, Wheaton College, Norton, MA (2018), "Vivid Forms: Cut Paper and Installation" at the Teaching Gallery, HVCC, Troy, NY (2017). Her work has been featured at Untitled Art Fair, Miami, FL, Tiger Strikes Asteroid GVL, Ashville, NC, and Newport Art Museum, Newport, RI. She lives in Rhode Island with her family.