Untitled
About this artwork
Owen’s work focuses on transformation, and his drawings use tools to ‘carve’ ink away from the paper rather than add it to the surface. This work is one of a series in which the artist has altered the pages of a book on public sculpture. From each image a public statue has been rubbed out to form an inanimate background, and the details of the scene it inhabited have been removed. Despite knowing that the task could easily be accomplished with computer programs like Photoshop, Owen values the inevitable imperfections that arise when the process is done with an ordinary eraser. In these drawings Owen performs a subtle form of vandalism, transforming the simple and everyday into the ghostly and enigmatic - the residual traces left behind leave clues as to what was once there.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Jonathan Owen (born 1973) British
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title:Untitled
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date created:2008
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materials:Partially erased book page
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measurements:(framed: 40.00 x 33.00 x 3.30 cm)
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 2009
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accession number:GMA 5088
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gallery:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Jonathan Owen
Jonathan Owen
Jonathan Owen was born in Liverpool. He studied Fine Art at Leeds Metropolitan University and obtained an MFA from Edinburgh College of Art in 2000. Owen’s art is about transformation: often using an ordinary rubber to erase parts of photographic images found in books. This systematic removal...