Laura Owens

Robots in the garden, lions, hunters, romance and war are some of the images in Laura Owens’ new work created for her third exhibition at HQ. Owens’ influences are wide, ranging from DADA performance to hindu relief, which inspired the figures to the right. Elsewhere she has broken away from the fine arts to delve into wallpapers and textiles.

Beyond the straightforward beauty of Owens’ paintings and drawings is a constant questioning of her chosen media. She has rejected naturalism in favour of depictions, representations. Her magpie-like approach to resources is echoed in her application of paint and the arrival of foreign elements in her collages. Evident too is an unashamed pleasure in ornamentation, a delight in pictorial elegance, which affords decoration a new dignity. Owens combines abstract elements with representational elements to create a highly personal vocabulary: a vocabulary which translates into an elaborate, elegant and quietly exuberant whole. 

1970 Born in Euclid (OH)
1992 Rhode Island School of Design, Providence (RI)
1994 Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Skowhegan (ME)
1994 California Institute of Arts, Valencia (CA)

Lives and works in Los Angeles

Solo Exhibitions
2007 Laura Owens: Paintings & Studies, Bonnefantenmuseum, Maastricht, Netherlands
2006 Laura Owens, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Kunsthalle Zurich, Zurich, touring to the Camden Arts Centre, London
Laura Owens, Sadie Coles HQ, London, touring to the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (cat.)
2005 Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo, Japan (cat.)
2004 The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (PA)
Galerie Gisela Capitain, Koln, Germany
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Crown Point Press, San Fransciso, CA
2003 Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA) (cat.) travelled to Aspen Art Museum, Aspen (CO); Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee (WI); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (FL)
The General Store, Milwaukee (WI)
2001 Isabella Gardner Museum, Boston (MA) (cat.)
ACME (with Martin Kersels), Los Angeles (CA)
2000 Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy
Inverleith House, Royal Botanical Garden, Edinburgh, Scotland (cat.)
1999 Sadie Coles HQ, London
Galerie Gisela Capitain, Koln, Germany
Statements, Basel Art Fair, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Basel, Switzerland
China Art Objects (with Scott Reeder), Los Angeles (CA)
1998Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
Acme, Los Angeles (CA)
LARC, Loyola University, Chicago (IL)
Studio Guenzani (with Sharon Lockhart), Milan, Italy
1997Sadie Coles HQ, London
1996 Studio 246 (with Lisa Anne Auerbach), Kunstlerhaus Bethanian, Berlin
Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York
1995Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica (CA)

Group Exhibitions

2007 Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London
Very Abstract and Hyper Figurative, Thomas Dane Gallery, London (curated by Jens Hoffman)
2006 Red Eye: L.A. Artists from the Rubell Family Collection, Rubell Family Collection, Miami (FL)
The Fluidity of Time: Selections from the MCA Collection, MCA, Chicago (IL)
Hotel California, Glendale College Art Gallery, Glendale (CA)
2005 After Cezanne, MOCA, Los Angeles (CA)
Goetz Meets Falckenberg, Sammlung Falckenberg, Hamburg, Germany
Ideal Worlds: New Romanticism in Contemporary Art, Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, Germany
Think Blue, Blum & Poe, Los Angeles (CA)
Huts, the Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin
25 Deutsche Bank Collection, Deutsche Guggenheim, Berlin (cat.)
Post Modern, Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
2004 The Undiscovered Country, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (CA)
2004 Whitney Biennial Exhibition, Whitney Museum of American Art,
New York
Huts, Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (cat.)
Never Never Landscape, Alte Gerhardsen, Berlin (curated by Kirsty Bell)
Contemporary Painting, Colby College Museum of Art, Waterville (ME) (curated by Alex Katz) (cat.)
Malerei, Galerie Rolf Hengesbach, Koln, Germany
Drunk vs. Stone, Passerby, New York (curated by the General Store)
Painting’s EDGE, Idyllwild Arts, California (Visiting artist for summer program)
2003 Inaugural Exhibition, GBE (Modern), New York
2002 Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, Museum of Modern Art, New York (cat.)
Cave Paintings (with Peter Doig and Chris Ofili), Santa Monica Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA) (cat.)
Painting on the Move, Kunstmuseum Basel; Museum für Gegenwartskunst Basel; Kunsthalle Basel, Basel (cat.)
Urgent Painting, Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris (cat.)
2001 Public Offerings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA) (cat.)
Lens and Paper – the Beauty of Intimacy, Gemeentemuseum, The Hague, The Netherlands and tour to Staatliche Kunsthalle Baden-Baden and Museum Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (cat.)
The Mystery of Painting, Sammlung Goetz, Munich, Germany (cat.)
Accumulations, School of Art Gallery, Kent State University, Ohio
Some Options in Abstraction, Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge (MA) (booklet)
Objective Color, Yale University Art Gallery, New Haven (CT)
Cal’s Art: Sampling Californian Painting, University of North Texas at Denton, Denton (TX)
Bastard (Son of Hot Sauce), The Law Office, Chicago (IL)
Painting on the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (MN)
Locating Drawing, Lawing Gallery, Houston (TX)
2000 On Canvas: Contemporary Painting from the Collection, Guggenheim, New York (curated by J. Fiona Ragheb)
American Academy Invitational Exhibition of Painting ans Sculpture, The American Academy of Arts and Letters, New York
The Next Wave: New Painting in Southern California (curated by N. Gamblin), Californian Center for the Arts, Encondido (CA)
Examining Pictures: Exhibiting Paintings, MOCA Chicago (IL);
UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (CA)
Art on Paper, Weatherspoon Art Gallery, The University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro (NC)
Works on Paper from Los Angeles, Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy
1999 Drawn to Nature, George’s, Los Angeles (CA)
Facts & Fictions II: Los Angeles (curated by Sergio Bertaccini),
ARCO, Turin, Italy
Carnegie International 1999/2000, Carnegie Museum of Art,
Pittsburgh (PA) (cat.)
Standing Still and Walking in Los Angeles, Gagosian Gallery,
Los Angeles (CA)
New Work: Painting Today, SFMOMA, San Francisco (CA)
Examining Pictures, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London;
MCA Chicago (IL) (cat.)
Works on paper (and some other things), ACME, Los Angeles (CA)
Nach-Bild, Kunsthalle Basel, Basel, Switzerland (cat.)
The Perfect Life: Artifice in LA 1999, Duke University Museum of Art,
Durham (NC)
Hot Spots (curated by Elizabeth Brown), Weatherspoon Art Gallery, University of North California at Greensboro (NC)
Local Colour (curated by Virginia Rutledge), University of La Verne,
La Verne (CA)
1998 Colour fields (curated by David Pagel), Luckman Fine Arts Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles (CA)
Young Americans 2, Saatchi Gallery, London (cat.)
ACME, Los Angeles (CA)
I’m Still in Love with You (curated by Stephen Hull) Women’s 20th Century Club, Los Angeles (CA)
Studio Guenzani, Milan, Italy
Visions, curated by Claudio Guenzani for the XXIX Rencontres International de la Photographie, Arles, France
Exterminating Angel, Galerie Ghislaine Hussenot, Paris
Paintings Interested in the Ideas of Architecture and Design, Post,
Los Angeles (CA)
1997 Project Painting, Basilico Fine Arts and Lehmann Maupin, New York (cat.)
Palace, Beret International Gallery, Chicago (IL)
Hot Coffee, Artists Space, New York
Sharon Lockhart, Laura Owens, Frances Stark, Blum & Poe,
Santa Monica (CA)
Vertical Painting Show, P.S.1, New York
Palace, Beret International Gallery, Chicago (IL)
The Eagle Rock Show, Eagle Rock Community Cultural Center,
Los Angeles (CA)
Hot Coffee, Artists Space, New York
1996 Wunderbar, Kunstverien, Hamburg, Germany
Screen (curated by Joshua Decter), Friedrich Petzel Gallery, New York
Studio 246, Mark Foxx Gallery Los Angeles (CA)
The Speed of Painting, Pat Hearn, New York
1995Painting Show, Regen Projects, Los Angeles (CA)
Smells Like Vinyl (curated by Thaddeus Strode and Sarah Seager),
Roger Merians Gallery, New York
Tell Everyone,Greene Naftali Gallery, New York
From LA with Love, Galerie Praz-delavallade, Paris
1994Gorgeous Politics (curated by Dave Hickey), Las Vegas (NV)
L.A.C.E. Annuale (curated by Dave Hickey), Los Angeles Contemporary Art exhibitions, Los Angeles (CA)
Thanks Again, Food House, Santa Monica (CA)
Playfield (curated by Randy Sommer), Rio Hondo College, Rio Hondo (CA)
Hot Crop (curated by J Willette), Claremont College,
Claremont (CA)

Awards

1999 Baloise Art Prize at Art Statements, Art 30 Basel

Public Collections

Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles (CA)
Saatchi Collection, London
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh (PA)
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
Guggenheim Museum of Art, New York
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco (CA)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (IL)
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (CA)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art (CA)
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Museum fur Gegenwartskunst, Basel