Instagram: @vividlypainting
Twitter: @vividly
Actual size 40 x 40 cm
Viv Owen investigates emotional states in her vivid freehand oil paintings. Her paintings depict expressive faces captured from mass media, reminiscent of the twitching dazzle of paused TV screens. They hint at enigmatic narratives and relationships: alluring or confrontational, fascinating and evocative.
Owen aims to portray a fleeting yet key moment of anticipation or reaction, that viewers will find puzzling and intriguing, and with some reflection, relatable. Owen includes visual clues that her paintings are developed from the television screen - choosing images which have in them reflections, glitches and blurs - which suggest the television as an object in itself.
Owen comments in her work on emotional entanglement with the artificial as a substitute – or perhaps immunisation against- the dramas of everyday life. Painting becomes a useful way of reclaiming the headspace that these fictional people occupy.
Born in Bury, Owen gained her BA at Bradford College, and MA at Leeds Metropolitan University (Leeds Beckett University). Working and exhibiting with artists’ studio groups since graduating in 2000, she moved to her own studio space in 2011 at Westgate Studios, Wakefield. Owen regularly exhibits in Yorkshire with Artwalk Wakefield, Cupola Gallery, Sheffield and in London with FLUX.