For her fourth show with Sadie Coles HQ, Laura Owens presents a body of new work. Abstract in style, these paintings and drawings evade easy analysis. The colourful canvases transform under scrutiny, as objects morph into figures, while figurative elements dissolve into abstraction, and other marks gain a new figurative resonance. The aesthetic charm of Owens’ work, which glories in pictorial elegance, is deliberately upset by this unsettling experience, which forces the viewer to question different ways of looking.
The euphoric playfulness of Owens’ painting resists classification. She describes her practice as porous, absorbing a steady flow of diverse influences, from folk art to landscape, from decorative art to portraiture. Attracted to little known and anonymous artists, where an identifiable ego is absent, Owens’ work is remarkably modest. Her opus defies any notion of a linear trajectory of thematic progression, as each piece appears to present a new beginning. She captures the ambling curiosity of the artist, while commenting on the struggles of such a career: ‘waiting until it gels, sitting through the pain. Like the hard part of meditation.’
