Art Unlimited Artist Spotlight: Laura Owens at Art 43 Basel

Laura Owens, Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, Art Unlimited at Art 43 Basel.

Laura Owens shows, with characteristic exuberant playfulness, that painting still makes an impact on par with oversized, obviously impressive sculptures. Entering her studio-like room of record-cover sized canvases, one is immediately taken by the gestural lines, layers of textures, dabbles of paint here and there. Owens doesn’t differentiate between play and “art”; every canvas is a separate world unto itself, with its own logic. Several paintings have a rotating hand meant to indicate either the passage of time or time’s relative absurdities. Fully illustrated books cover a long rectangular table, inviting viewers to flip through joyously human evidence of creativity.

Photography and text: Yanyan Huang