Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 5

Ruth Owens
See Me, Countryside

2021

$1,000
£781.08
€885.45
CA$1,433.61
A$1,572.59
CHF 822.81
MX$18,717
NOK 10,392.54
SEK 9,748.38
DKK 6,613.01

About the Item

edition 3-7, 9-11, 18-32 ARTIST STATEMENT “Debbie Do Dallas” read the handwritten label on a plain black VCR tape tucked in amongst my father’s collection of westerns and adventure movies. Viewing those words as a teenager caused me untold anguish, equally because of the grammatical failure to make subject and verb agree, as the thought of my father watching sexually explicit content. This intersection of personal familial relationships, and the cultural context that leads to inequality of resources, such as access to educational opportunities between those of African and European descent, is what underlies the impetus for my work. Straddling the divide between Teutonic and African ancestries, my concerns are more relevant than ever in our current polarized political milieu, and I attempt to tell my story from an intensely personal viewpoint. An approach to art making that includes both the very personal familial history and the interaction of that family with dominant cultural forces defines the crux of my work. It is with merciless candor that I bring untold family secrets, infidelities, addiction, and mental illness to the fore. Each painting is rooted in a pivotal memory from childhood and represents a psychologically intense moment of personal influence, set in a culture of racial divide. Negotiating psychological and cultural tensions is my driving force, and my communicative tools lie in a very expressive and organic method of painting. The surfaces are scratched, left bare, glopped on, and dripped on for a mood consistent with the emotive content of the image. The surface not only becomes a metaphor for the vulnerability of our physical bodies, but it further represents an attempt to embrace a fluidity of racial identity in order to subvert the prescribed identity dictated by our dominant culture. A Gerhardt Richter-like scrape of facial features denies placement of a figure within the confines of a preordained racial construct. Although we were not wealthy, my parents purchased a super-eight camera to record the now requisite footage of our childhood birthday parties and backyard antics in the 1960’s and 1970’s. This footage has proved to be an extremely valuable resource in mining my psychological past, and clips from these films have served as reference images for my paintings. However, instead of faithfully copying the images in a straightforward representational manner, I have attempted to heighten the emotional and visual impact by use of collage, color alterations, and compositional changes. The corruption of the super-eight film over time is actually an asset in my painting practice. It results in a loss of a significant degree of visual information allowing me to experiment with abstraction in the figure and its surroundings. This abstraction and departure from the representational can go a long way in helping to communicate a fluidity of racial identity, to set the mood for a psychological investigation of memories past, and to speak to the vulnerability of brown and black bodies. Further, the abstraction opens up possibilities for the manipulation color and composition in the service of visual pleasure. Such beauty provides an invitation to the viewer to, perhaps, open up to this racially and culturally complicated family, which arguably stands to represent the norm, more and more, as time goes by.
  • Creator:
    Ruth Owens (1959, American, German)
  • Creation Year:
    2021
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 22.5 in (57.15 cm)Width: 17.5 in (44.45 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Movement & Style:
  • Period:
  • Framing:
    Framing Options Available
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New Orleans, LA
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU105217238812

More From This Seller

View All
Babydoll Gina
By Ruth Owens
Located in New Orleans, LA
Edition 2/6 RUTH OWENS graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Ga...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Babydoll Rahrah
By Ruth Owens
Located in New Orleans, LA
Edition 2/5 RUTH OWENS graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Ga...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Babydoll Merline
By Ruth Owens
Located in New Orleans, LA
Edition 2/6 RUTH OWENS graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Ga...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

Babydoll Becky
By Ruth Owens
Located in New Orleans, LA
Edition 2/5 RUTH OWENS graduated in 2018 with an MFA from the University of New Orleans after leaving her medical practice of 25 years. She is represented by the Jonathan Ferrara Ga...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Etching

New York (Golden Hour)
By Kristin Moore
Located in New Orleans, LA
Giclee print on archival cold press cotton rag, edition 10 of 25 with 5 APs. In this new series of paintings, Moore explores themes of wanderlust and memory. From glowing neon signa...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Prints

Materials

Rag Paper, Giclée

Marfa Moonrise [Hand Embellished]
By Kristin Moore
Located in New Orleans, LA
Archival pigment ink print on Hahnemuhle cotton paper. Each print is uniquely hand embellished by the artist. Edition 3 of 5. In this new series of paintings, Moore explores themes ...
Category

21st Century and Contemporary Contemporary Landscape Prints

Materials

Rag Paper, Archival Pigment

You May Also Like

Lord on the Sand Castle - XX century Black & White Woodcut Print
By Franciszek Bunsch
Located in Warsaw, PL
Illustration for Jules de la Medelen's "Lord on the Sand Castle" ("Le Marquis Des Saffras") FRANCISZEK BUNSCH (born in 1926) Franciszek Bunsch was born in Bielsko in 1926. He studie...
Category

1950s Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Woodcut, Paper

Curtain - XX century, Contemporary Black & White Linocut Print
By Franciszek Bunsch
Located in Warsaw, PL
One of 30 copies. FRANCISZEK BUNSCH (born in 1926) Franciszek Bunsch was born in Bielsko in 1926. He studied painting under the guidance of prof. Eugeniusz Eibisch and graphic art as...
Category

1980s Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Paper, Linocut

Lord on the Sand Castle - XX century Black & White Woodcut Print
By Franciszek Bunsch
Located in Warsaw, PL
Illustration for Jules de la Medelen's "Lord on the Sand Castle" ("Le Marquis Des Saffras") FRANCISZEK BUNSCH (born in 1926) Franciszek Bunsch was born in Bielsko in 1926. He studie...
Category

1950s Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Woodcut, Paper

Devil /// Contemporary Pop Art Minimalism Linocut Black and White Art Religious
By Dan May
Located in Saint Augustine, FL
Artist: Dan May (American, 1955-) Title: "Devil" *Signed and numbered by May in pencil lower left Year: 1999 Medium: Original Linocut on white Hosho handmade paper Limited edition: 1...
Category

1990s Contemporary Portrait Prints

Materials

Handmade Paper, Linocut

"Laughing Matters" Comedy Legends-Marx Bros, Laurel, Hardy, Burns, Allen, Twain
By Albert Al Hirschfeld
Located in New York, NY
"Laughing Matters" Comedy Legends-Marx Bros, Laurel, Hardy, Burns, Allen, Twain Al Hirschfeld (1903-2003) Laughing Matters Lithograph on heavy paper, 1987 Signed lower right, numbe...
Category

1980s Contemporary Figurative Prints

Materials

Paper, Lithograph

Addisonjones photography, Contemplative Beauty portrait photography
By Addison Jones
Located in Delaware , OH
Addisonjones photography, Contemplative Beauty portrait photography ABOUT THIS PIECE: This piece of fine art photography for sale named "Contemplative Beauty" was part of a portrai...
Category

2010s Contemporary Black and White Photography

Materials

Rag Paper, Black and White