Frank Owen
Painter Frank Owen, now eighty-three, is still making dramatic and complex works charged with spontaneous gestures, bold geometric forms, and surprising juxtapositions of luminous color. One is supposedly less active and able in old age, but not Owen, as the paintings in “Retrospection,” his solo presentation at Nancy Hoffman Gallery, clearly affirm.
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Frank Owen, Venture (2022) and Definer (2022), both acrylic on canvas, 50 x 40 inches. Photo by Jason Andrew
Contributed by Jason Andrew / I first came to know the work of Frank Owen over two decades ago through the sculptor Joel Perlman. I stepped off the elevator at Perlman’s studio on West Broadway and immediately encountered an Owen painting. It seemed fitting to discover such a physical painter as Owen through a sculptor. Only recently I learned that the title of that painting was Augmented Position, also fitting insofar as Owen has challenged and changed the way one can experience painting. The proof is in his current show “Retrospection,” on view at Nancy Hoffman Gallery.
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