Laura Owens
September 8 - November 6, 2004
Laura Owens in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Untitled, 2003. Hand embroidery and silkscreen print on tussah silk. 69 1/2 x 50 inches. Photo: Aaron Igler | |
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The Fabric Workshop and Museum (FWM) is pleased to present a stunning new body of work by Los Angeles-based painter Laura Owens. Through her residency at the FWM, Owens created a suite of seven hand-embroidered prints on silk, which will be on view September 8, 2004 - November 6, 2004. A gallery talk by Owens and FWM Project Coordinator, Olivia Schreiner, will take place on Tuesday, September 21, 2004 at 6:00 p.m. and a lecture on Owens's work by Paul Schimmel, Chief Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, will be held on November 5, 2004 at 6:00 p.m.
The new series of works employ the broad range of influences, application techniques, and iconography that have placed Owens at the forefront of contemporary painting. Though created in a new medium, these works build on the artist's long time interest in European, Asian and American landscape painting, tapestries and decorative textile design. As with her strongest paintings, abstract and figurative elements establish a complex series of formal relationships.
In Owens' untitled beehive paintings from 1998, the black and yellow stripes of the bees are made up of three-dimensional rows of paint applied directly from the tube; the marks in this painting were directly inspired by an embroidered pillow the artist purchased at an estate sale. Through the FWM's Artist-in-Residence Program, Owens has been able to explore the range of mark-making, textures and palette available through historical embroidery materials and styles, and merge it into her signature imagery of trees, leaves and creatures, as well as flat areas of pure color.
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Laura Owens in collaboration with The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Untitled(detail), 2003. Hand embroidery and silkscreen print on tussah silk. 69 1/2 x 50 inches. Photo: Aaron Igler |
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Born in Euclid, Ohio, Owens currently lives and works in Los Angeles. Owens received her B.F.A. from Rhode Island School of Design and her M.F.A. from California Institute for the Arts. Her recent exhibitions include a solo exhibition organized by Paul Schimmel at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003, traveled to Aspen Art Museum, Milwaukee Art Museum and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami) and the 2004 Whitney Biennial. Her works have been acquired by museums including the Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and the Guggenheim Museum, New York. Other recent exhibitions include Drawing Now: Eight Propositions, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2002); Painting at the Edge of the World, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2001); a solo exhibition at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2001); and Examining Pictures: Exhibiting Paintings, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago (2000, traveled to UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles).
The Fabric Workshop and Museum is the only contemporary art museum in the
United States devoted to creating new work in fabric and other materials
in collaboration with emerging and established artists from around the world.
Founded in 1977, The Fabric Workshop and Museum has developed from an
ambitious experiment to a renowned institution with a widely recognized
residency program, an extensive collection of work by resident artists,
in-house and touring exhibitions, and comprehensive educational programming
that includes lectures, tours, in-school presentations, and student apprenticeships.
All FWM exhibitions and programs are free and open to the public.
Hours: Mon. - Fri. 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Sat., 12 noon to 4 p.m.
The programs of The Fabric Workshop and Museum are supported by The Pew Charitable Trusts; The Judith Rothschild Foundation; Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, a state agency; National Endowment for the Arts; Miller-Plummer Foundation; LLWW Foundation; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; U. S. Institute of Museum and Library Services; Nimoy Foundation; The Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission; Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro; Independence Foundation; PNC Foundation; The Philadelphia Cultural Fund; E. Rhodes and Leona B. Carpenter Foundation; Claneil Foundation; Stockton Rush Bartol Foundation; Dolfinger-McMahon Foundation; The Henry Luce Foundation matching gifts program; The Barra Foundation; LEF Foundation; Louis N. Cassett Foundation; Quaker Chemical Foundation; and the Board of Directors and members of The Fabric Workshop and Museum.
For more information, please contact Alex Sadvari, Communications Coordinator, at 215-568-1111 ext. 15,
alex@fabricworkshopandmuseum.org.
For general information, call 215-568-1111.
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