Madelyn Owens is a Brooklyn-based artist. Her
collaborative exhibition with poet Kelly Murphy, "Muscle
Memory" opens today, Friday, May 11th for a two week showing at
Brooklyn's World Money
Gallery. Big Shoe Diaries interviewed Ms. Owens about her art practice
and her friendship and collaboration with Ms. Murphy. All work featured in this
interview © Madelyn Owens 2017.
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Glamour Shot - 16" x 20" - Acrylic, glitter and collage on canvas |
BSD: What inspired the collaboration for Muscle Memory?
Kelly
and I have been friends for a long time, and in the past few years we
both got serious about our artistic pursuits. Kelly came up with the
idea of putting on a show with art and poetry. She shared some of her
poems with me, and I thought they were really beautiful and reflected
some of the themes in my work as well, and it just evolved from there.
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#31 - 12" x 18" - Watercolor and gouache on paper |
BSD: Have you paired your work that of a writer before? How was this different from previous creative projects for you?
I
participated in a show called "Ekphrasis" which paired up writers and
artists to create work based on each others work, that was a little
different because the writer I was working with wrote satire, so it was
fun to do something a bit more lighthearted. Working on Muscle Memory
with Kelly was a lot more nuanced. For example, when she first read me
her poems, the first thing I did was create some color studies for each
of the poems, this helped to develop the overall mood and tone for the
collection of work going forward.
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#42 - 9" x 12" - Watercolor on paper |
BSD: Do you write as well? What differences do you see in the roles of writers versus artists?
I
do some writing as well. I used to write articles for Brokelyn.com, and
I also write, draw, and self publish a comic called Vagilantes. Wrting
comics is a little different because the images can say a whole lot more
than the words do. I think writing is much, much harder. Both mediums
try to convey a message, but I think there is more leeway with visual
art since it can be so subjective—people bring their own experiences
with them when they look at art, and I sort of love that one painting
can mean totally different things to different people. With writing, you
are really trying to get people to see it the way you mean it to be
seen, and damn, that's hard.
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By Myself - 24" x 30" - Acrylic on canvas |
BSD: Is the work more personal or political? In what ways?
The
personal IS political, duh! But really, I think it's both. The work in
Muscle Memory is super personal, like literally nude self portraits and
many many many images of Kelly in various poses. A lot of the work was
created in my bedroom, at night, by myself, which is just a really
personal time and place to work. But I'm making work primarily about
inhabiting a female body, and at this point in history, that's
inherently political. I would point particularly to my hair and glitter
crotch pieces. I have a long and complicated relationship with my body
hair, vacillating between combating it and embracing it. Earlier this
year I decided to grow out all of my hair for a few months, then I asked
my friend Kyle Lamar, who is an amazing photographer, to take pictures
of me, close up pictures of the hairiest parts of my body. I created the
glitter crotches as a response to the impossible standards women's
bodies are held up to: be natural, but also be glamorous.
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Zeus - 18" x 24" - Chalk and charcoal on paper |
All
or nothing! I'm working on striking a balance, but really, I'm either
toting a sketchbook around with me sketching all my friends all day, and
staying up all night painting, or I'm avoiding the studio entirely and
feeling really bad about myself. Right now I still feel like I'm honing
my skills and growing into the artist I hope to become, so I'm still
spending a lot of time at figure drawing sessions, taking classes, and
experimenting with different media. I just took a class on oil painting
for the first time, and I'm really excited for the possibilities that
presents.
Join the artists for the opening event at 7:30 p.m., Friday, May 12th.