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 used photographs of Hollywood film stars on set, and carefully erased most of the main character. Despite knowing that this 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. Interested in how figures are immortalised through sculpture and photography, Owen performs a subtle form of vandalism in this series, 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

  • artist:
    Jonathan Owen (born 1973) British
  • title:
    Eraser Drawing (Portrait of Groucho Marx)
  • date created:
    2013
  • materials:
    Partially erased book page
  • measurements:
    Paper size: 32.10 x 27.30 cm (framed: 41.10 x 36.00 x 3.70 cm)
  • object type:
  • credit line:
    Purchased 2013
  • accession number:
    GMA 5396
  • gallery:
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Jonathan Owen

Jonathan Owen