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| Biography Awards/Grants-New!!! Selected Collections Selected Commissions Selected Exhibitions Affiliations Periodicals, where Referenced Other Online Listings Selected Press and Media-New!!! |
| BIOGRAPHY Ask Brian Owens how long it took him to complete a specific work of art and he will answer "about 25 years". He can't remember precisely when his journey as an artist began. By the age of 16 he had a body of work and his first two-man exhibit of drawings at a gallery in his hometown, Detroit. As a young man his interests changed. He received his BSEE degree in 1979 and in the decade that followed he moved to Florida where he worked in the defense industry. In 1990 his creative side reasserted itself, marking the beginning of what he calls "the wonderful obsession". He began the 90's with his first bronze sculpture: Noble Origin. By the end of the decade He had completed multiple bronze sculpture commissions for individuals, city and county governments and had sold his bronze sculpture directly to collectors scattered from south Florida to Saginaw, Michigan to Richmond, Virginia. Owens has twice won the New Forms Florida program grant; A competitive grant sponsored by the NEA and the Andy Warhol Foundation. His most visible public art commission was for the Corporation for Olympic Development in Atlanta (CODA): In 1996 he created four historic bronze sculptures that are permanently installed on Auburn Avenue in the neighborhood where Martin Luther King was raised. His latest public work is a bronze sculpture of Zora Neale Hurston soon to be installed in a new park in DeLand, Florida. He had another good reason to visit Atlanta during the 90's when his father Carl Owens, a successful illustrator and painter, relocated there. He realized that he had taken for granted the immense well of knowledge that was his father and began the new millennium with a new mission that he calls "the marathon". In the years that followed, he "shifted gears" by setting his work in bronze sculpture aside for awhile to focus on painting. In Atlanta, he learned to paint from his father and attended life drawing classes. In Florida, he engaged in marathons during which he would paint all day, six days a week for the purpose of refining his skills. In time he enlarged his self-directed education and traveled to take lessons and advice from seasoned artists whom he refers to as "the wise men". As a painter and bronze sculptor Owens has come full circle, having built on the draftsmanship that he developed in his youth. His body of work now includes fine oil portraits, acrylic paintings, pastels and a series of drawings in pen and ink. |
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