Peter Owen

Region: Northeast

I explore the neighborhoods around my apartment and studio and make drawings on site-in alleyways, on sidewalks, in parking lots-at various times of day and night. These works deviate from plein-air painting in that each drawing is a layered recording. The images, superimposed on each other, become an accretion of landscape. From a distance, they look almost like sidewalk stains, but up close a multiplicity of lines refer to various places, tangled together. I am attempting to understand the psychology of the spaces around me. One can never get the whole, true story of a specific part of town; each place holds the varied experiences and memories of thousands of people. These paintings and drawings offer observations of different spaces, clues about the variety of uses, truths, and histories of place.