EYE-LIKEY VISITS with
Doug Owen
sculpture
Born: 1950 South Dakota
University of South Dakota, Fine Arts
Although Owen's forms undoubtedly resemble horses, they can also be seen as pure assemblages of faintly recognizable objects- namely car, tractor, and motorcycle parts. Owen’s choice of medium imbues his sculptures with a touch of humor, of irony: his horses are constructed out of the very material that ultimately replaced them. At the same time, these vintage vehicle parts are themselves obsolete, and carry with them a certain nostalgic air. In their incorporation of found objects (Owen retrieves his metal from abandoned lots, ditches, old farms), the sculptures recall the work of artists like Ed Kienholz and Noah Purify, whose sculptures likewise use manufactured detritus to create new, powerful structures. Owen’s sculptures are striking for their sinewy, Picassoesque lines (the artist originally studied gesture drawing), but their colors are equally arresting. Bottle greens, goldenrod yellows, coppery browns, tans, ochres, and blues: these are colors most often associated with landscape painting. Indeed, like the earthy sculpture of Tony Cragg, Owen’s horses seem perfectly at home in their settings. Grazing, lounging, or surveying their realm, it’s as if they’ve assembled themselves almost magically out of the surrounding environment. A culmination of 40 years of artistic exploration, Doug Owen’s sculpture has garnered an international following in recent years.
