MASON OWENS: morning to midnight
May 17 - July 6, 2024
Public reception: Friday, June 7, 5:30 – 8 pm
Steven Zevitas Gallery is pleased to present Mason Owen’s premiere solo exhibition, morning to midnight. The exhibition will be on view from May 17 to July 6, 2024, with an opening reception on Friday, June 7th from 5:30 - 8 pm.
morning to midnight consists of fifteen intimately-scaled egg tempera paintings that depict and revel in life’s transitory moments. A contemplative stillness emanates from each vignette as Owens allows the warmth of the sun and the glow of the moon to envelop each scene in a unifying light.
Owens’ work is resolutely contemporary, yet connected to the rich history of intimism found in the work of artists such as Matisse and Bonnard. The artist paints moments from his own life and childhood in a way that feels familiar and comforting. Using egg tempera, Owens is able to quickly and playfully add or redact elements as he attempts to translate his memories and capture the intimacy of these fleeting experiences. In boy sleeping on the heating vent/remembering the old farmhouse, the artist is seen as a young child lying on a landing at the top of the stairs; he’s underneath the bookshelf where he and his brothers would often fall asleep while paging through a book. The farmhouse was old and has since fallen into disrepair, but Owens grew up dreaming about how he might restore it one day. The light from the stairwell casts a narrow beam down the hall and a clock ticks on top of the bookshelf…Owen’s parents are just in the other room.
view from my childhood window depicts a landscape bathed in the muted, blue light that comes after nightfall. Owens remembers looking at the backyard from his upstairs window and being enthralled by how the familiar space took on a new and mysterious character at night. The sky is made up of thousands of organized linear marks, incorporating elements of drawing while speaking to the energy of a calm, dark evening. In breakfast with bo, short, intentional strokes of opaque yellows envelop the darker shades beneath as light comes through the window. This recent memory is not as narrative as it is experiential– nothing is extravagant or unnatural, it is simple and earnestly poetic.
Owens uses pre-ground natural earth pigments in his egg tempera and prepares his wood panels with chalk gesso, only using natural materials, perhaps as a nod to his professional work as a farmer, gardener, and landscaper over seven years. morning to midnight marks Owen’s return to art-making and, in its totality, is an ode to the under-appreciated moments that make up all of our lives. Whether he depicts a lazy morning in a sun-drenched room, or is taking a moment to step away at a summertime gathering, each work serves as a quiet recognition that beauty exists in the everyday.
MASON OWENS (b.1991 Vineland, NJ) is a multidisciplinary artist working in Baltimore, MD. He received his BFA from the University of the Arts in 2013 and studied abroad at The Glasgow School of Art, in Glasgow, Scotland. After college, he completed Maryland's Beginner Farmer Training Program and worked as a farmer, gardener, or landscaper for the next seven years. Like many others, he began to rethink his life during the pandemic and decided to return to art making. In 2022, he joined IATSE 487 as a Scenic Artist on movie sets. This is Mason Owen’s first solo exhibition and first exhibition with Steven Zevitas Gallery.
