Marilyn Ann Owens

My present work.

I work with painting, drawing, printmaking and photography.
My latest work concerns landscape/seascape, usually empty or showing traces of landmarks, shelters and boundaries. I often work in series. My intention is to capture the essential qualities of a scene with the minimum of information. The art works balance between the concrete and the narrative, often with an element of underlying surrealism.

My most recent project was an exhibition, “Broken Boats and Tangled Waters”, (2019) based upon a two month Artist in Residency period (2018) in the lighthouse keeper’s house on Jomfruland, an island lying off the South West coast of Norway. The project consisted of black and white photographs, graphite and oil pastel drawings and small oil sketches. The main theme of the work centres on the Norwegian Folklore stories of two supernatural beings: Nøkken and Draugen. Nøkken lives in inland waters, small lakes and rivers, whereas Draugen’s home is the sea. They both kill their victims by drowning. The rumour is that Nøkken lives in the lake next to the Lighthouse keeper’s house on Jomfruland and Draugen is responsible for all shipwrecks and storms off the coast.

The small oil sketches from this project were shown again in the exhibition, “Land, Sea and Sky”, in Wald, Porsgrunn which was a part of a larger art project, “Greenlightdistrict”, that focused upon sea pollution. (2019).

Previous recent projects have been about local public transport, both by bus, “Route M1” and by ferry, “Island hopping in the Langesund Fjord”.

My present project concerns Tangen Fort in Langesund. “Closed Doors, but Open Skies”. This project will be shown in Galleri POP, Langesund in November, 2020, and will include drawings and photography.