Since the late 1990s, Laura Owens (b. 1970, Euclid, OH) has taken a ranging and experimental approach to the medium of painting—an approach that embraces a breadth of sources from the avant-garde to the populist to the decorative. She gained recognition by irreverently upending the medium’s history and formal conventions, appropriating and recombining techniques and motifs from the canon of fine art, folk art, pop culture, and technology. Owens’ paintings frequently challenge the boundaries between pictorial and physical space by engaging with their architectural context. In recent years, she has increasingly employed multiple media in expansive installations that explore the construction and consumption of contemporary visual culture
The artist has presented solo exhibitions include Laura Owens: Rerun, Cleveland Museum of Art, OH (2021); Laura Owens & Vincent van Gogh, Fondation Vincent van Gogh, Arles, France (2021); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2017); Ten Paintings, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2016); and Secession, Vienna (2015). Notable group exhibitions include From Cindy Sherman to Francesco Vezzoli: 80 Contemporary Artists, Palazzo Reale, Milan (2025); Copistes, Centre Pompidou-Metz, Metz, France (2025); Day for Night: New American Realism, National Gallery of Ancient Art, Palazzo Barberini, Rome (2024); Capturing the Moment, Tate Modern, London (2023); and INFORMATION (Today), Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland (2021). Her work is in the collections of Art Insttute of Chicago, IL; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York City; Museum of Modern Art, New York City; ICA, Boston; and Tate Modern, London. Owens lives and works in Los Angeles.
(as of 2026)
