CONTEMPORARY: Laurence Owen 

* Please see the Events page for details of 'A Prayer for the Procrastinaor', Laurence Owen's forthcoming show with Henry Hudson*


The tension between Laurence Owen's love for the controlled, painstaking and monotonous process of traditional oil painting, and the conflicting desire to break free of its constraints gives Owen’s work a playful and rebellious energy.

‘Work Hard Play Hard’ draws out the beauty from the mundane with the deft use of form and colour reminiscent of a young Hockney.

In ‘A Disjointed Unity’ in an act displaying both his cocksure attitude and a tendency to panic he covered an uneven third of it with great swathes of black paint. Was this self-censorship, or self annihilation?

He describes making these marks as ‘stylistic self destruction, a real letting go.’ The frustration inevitable in the process of painting is central to this exhibition. They are putting on show their own development and internal struggles as artists, the hidden procrastination that is involved in all creative endeavors.

In 2006 Owen's paintings were included in 'In the Darkest Hour there may be Light', The Damien Hirst Murderme collection at the Serpentine Gallery.