Laura Owens

Widely recognised for her use of both cultural and art historical references and ability to create across such movements as figuration, Pop Art and abstraction, Laura Owens is a painter whose influences range from Henri Matisse to cartoon characters, creating work that often defies specific categorisation. Among Owens’ most notable works is her 2015 series of paintings based on newspaper stereotype plates (circa 1940); the plates were discovered by Owens under the sliding of her home, and as with a lot of her works, the series combined traditional oil paint with screen printed images that had been digitally manipulated using software. Of her untethered and often indefinable style, Owens has remarked “I feel no shame about having paintings be as grandiose and ridiculous as possible”. (Artist website)