Joyce Owens solo exhibition

Posted by: Joyce Owens

Joyce Owens\' creativity can\'t be confined to a single medium. A talented painter, she adds elements of collage to both her painting and her sculptures, and some of her paintings have very sculptural characteristics.

But even with the diversity of style, there is one word that can be used to describe all her artwork - they\'re all portraits, images of people. For Owens, it all comes down to human beings.

\"Where do the problems come from? Who can solve the problems? It\'s all about choices, to me anyway,\" said Owens during a recent interview from her Chicago home. Owens, who has a master of fine art from Yale University, is an art professor and curator at Chicago State University. She has won numerous awards and has shown her work extensively in the U.S. and overseas.

\"Joyce Owens: Retrospective\" will be at the Contemporary Art Center of Peoria through June 28. The show features mixed media paintings, sculpture, and a series called \"More than Skin Deep\" which, through the clever use of folds, turns painted canvas into a sculptural experience.

When queried if she wrinkles the canvas before or after painting, Owens laughs. \"Everybody asks me that question. Art is supposed to make you think, if that\'s what people think about, that\'s OK - I love it.\"

Owens likes to be challenged by her work, and painting canvases after they\'ve been intricately folded is certainly challenging. But the folds also have connotations which give the work not only literal dimension, but figurative dimension as well.

\"The folds represent life - life isn\'t smooth. If we were a chart it would be up and down, and then down more, and then way down, and then up,\" she explained. \"The paintings are like life - it\'s not perfect.\"

The wrinkles also hint at the many dimensions in the human personality.

\"All you know about me is what I\'m telling you, but there are other layers to me,\" said Owens. \"So the folds on the canvas represent the obstacles that we have to overcome, we have to learn to overcome the bumps.\"

Many of life\'s bumps are caused by false assumptions people have about each other.

\"In the \"More than Skin Deep\" series I\'m applying it to race. I\'ve done other series where I\'m trying to get people to look beyond the surface of human beings,\" said Owens. \"Basically we\'re all pretty much the same. The range between human beings of different ethnic groups is very minimal. We really are all humans, and we bleed red blood - all of us do.\"

Read more: http://www.pjstar.com/news/x985027207/Chicago-Artist-Joyce-Owens-Represents-Lifes-Many-Ups-And-Downs-Through-Her-Portraits#ixzz2Vwytoli8