Chris Owen & Cory Cone

Abtract Painting

By Chris Owen and Cory Cone

Thanks to Nat for this wonderful documentation of the evening.

Thanks to Cory for being a part of this whole thing

And thanks to Dan, for being a good friend. (He traded me that photo for a painting of mine)

- Chris

Senior Thesis 1-UPs

Heres new shots of my senior thesis paintings. Thanks again to Dan for the nice photographs of the work

A few comments that these paintings have received go something like…

These abstract painting “moves” (the individual elements) remind me of old atari video games – ie. your are a little square, or a few pixels that resemble the outline of a human form. You move through a world of mundane pixelated images, yet your imagination turns those 2 dimensional green blobs into ferocious alligators. I think the person was trying to say that each element seemed like a wonderful facilitator for imagination and movement. Good. Another comment was that there were so many different elements all individual elements became meaningless in this giant mess. Sweet.

Here they are – They used to have fun titles, but I have misplaced the old cards and forgotten them… so for now, the only title I can remember is…

“Empathy is Most Comfortable Pair of Underwear.” (All paintings are 4′x2′, acrylic on mdf board) each individual painting is a link to itself, its not only one big image.

sdshw

Heres a painting I’ve been working on, on the side of my “squares” project. This one is a quasi-tribute to Marla Olmstead, the famous (or infamous?) painter born in 2000. Its two canvases stretched and then connected, the white space at the bottom-right is actually nothing.

“The Northern Lights Will Never Reach Kentucky”

I find the Marla Olmstead case quite extraordinary. A child’s innocent creation, made into a real something by the coaching and adjustments of her father – both father and daughter, together, the perfect portrait of an artist. Innocence and Experience, working together, butting heads, and in the end, creating something… whether or not that thing is good or bad, interesting or passe… I think such a genuine example of artistic creativity is beautiful, and seeing the output of such a process… whew. yes.

sorry my posts are few and far between. I do have to paint these things – that takes a while. And then I don’t own a digital camera so… that makes things harder. But thanks to Daniel Shea, he took all the squared painting shots, the image above, and hes also working on my senior thesis paintings as we speak, thanks buddy, I owe you a beer or four… no headbutts this time, f’real.

oh that reminds me, I’m about to update the square painting post, so look for a newish painting in there.

Chris

Squared One

Here is the work I’ve begun since summer 2007. Its a series that explores my relationship to my observations of the real world, translating those observations into information, and then communicating that information through language and other coded expression. Some pieces are in a more finished state than others, and I am still undecided whether or not any of them are finished. But when I find out, I’ll let you know.

This is from my “Chewing on Teeth” show at the Baltimore Theatre Project.

New Old

I swear I’ll have a post of somethings I’ve been working on recently, I just don’t have a readily available awesome digital camera to document. But I do have old files of past projects. This one in particular was made up of many shaped canvases, which were painted with blacks, whites and grays – the focus was on the texture I guess… but really the focus had nothing to do with the actual painting (verb), it was more about the painting (noun)… the thing! thingness… its realness, its heavy-ass-object-hood. The “viewer” was able to interact with the piece, so long as she read the disclaimer, and he put on the proper attire (jump suit, helmet, and gloves). SheHe could indeed change the painting physically by moving the individual pieces around on the grid of screws that I made, laying them on the floor, or propping them against the wall… whatever… ya know? man? But the sad thing about this piece, is obvious restrictions… you couldn’t paint on the thing, you couldn’t hurt them at all (purposefully), you couldn’t hang them where ever… you were only allowed to use what I provided, in a certain space that I sectioned off. So in the end, you could take the pieces from some one else’s idea, and put them together in your own way, and then know that you made this unique thing… out of someone else’s unique thing… out of someone else’s unique thing…. out of someone else’s unique thing.

Making Paintings

In the Picture – Chris Owen

Photo Credit – Giuliana Pinto

Making Paintings 2

In the Picture – Cory Cone

Photo Credit – Chris Owen

Order + Chaos

Here are a few of my “black” paintings. They were made with charcoal, chalk, conte, pastel, graphite and oil on canvas. They were created in 2004 and 2005.

Mimic

Holy Holy Holy

Down

Bask

Sister 1

Sister 2

Coupling Act

First Painting Post

Alright – So what I have for you here is the most recent body of work that I’ve finished. The images below are of 8 paintings that I completed for my Senior Thesis at the Maryland Institute College of Art. The 8 paintings are 2′x4′x1″ in dimension. My concept of these paintings runs loosely around these thoughts – Each different painting move or character is part of its own language. I take advantage of texture, transparency, color, form, and line to distinguish these moves. Each of these characters are being combined together to create a mood, a feeling, a memory. But these combinations are so full of diversity that it may be impossible to distill a singular motif, but they are not so chaotic that one will not find the ability to look into each painting.

Senior Thesis 1-4

Senior Thesis 5-8

Size Reference

(Soon I will have images of each individual painting so you can better explore each one.)

- Chris

Hullo

Hi,

I’m Chris Owen. A painter/drawer/beast, living in Baltimore and working at Whole Foods in Mt. Washington. I may look like just a normal grocery boy, but no – I’m not. So I’ll be turning this blog thing into a page where you can view my makings and things I might actually have the courage to call Art, someday. So please stop by again soon. And I’ll try to keep you good people posted on whats goin’ on.

Its AHWN!

-Chris

oh yeah, PS… my friend Cory Cone and I are having a two man double whammy show – so if you’re in Baltimore, or will be in a couple of months – come and see it. It’s nice.

oh yeah and I might as well post a picture of myself being fun around some paintings that i made over this past summer – my friend Ramsey Beyerseesreyeyes snapped it.