LAURA OWENS
b. 1970, United StatesLaura Owens is a highly experimental artist whose works are playful, questioning, unconstrained by canvas and often site-specific. Combining painting, digital composition, use of found objects, collage and drawing, her artwork floats between abstraction and figuration.
Early Years
Laura Owens was born in Euclid, Ohio in 1970, a small town which she remembers as being “really conservative”. She studied at Rhode Island School of Design (“I felt so much better as soon as I got to art school,” she has said) and then at California Institute of the Arts, gaining her BFA in 1992 and her MFA in 1994.
Laura Owens: Artworks
Laura Owens’ is an abstract painter who uses figuration as a formal device. Her artmaking process is experimental but also meticulous: elements are hand-produced in her studio and could include multi-layered silkscreen prints, moving parts or audio. “I’m really interested in heterogeneous surfaces,” she said in 2020—she and her team will mix paint and other elements to create different textures and levels of gloss, matte and density. Continually questioning the possibilities of painting, Owens integrates her artwork into the space in which it is displayed, using entire walls and encroaching into ceilings.
- Owens’ 2016 show at the Wattis Institute in San Francisco was called Ten Paintings, but the paintings were actually hidden in panels of the wallpaper she had hand-made for the gallery space. The exhibition also contained audio elements, some of which visitors discovered by calling phone numbers on the paper.
- Many of Owens’ artworks are named Untitled—a 2023 multi-layered painting of that name displayed at Sadie Coles HQ’s booth at Art Basel mixed oil paint, Flashe and collage, described by Ocula as “a palimpsest of delicate, iridescent colours”.
- In her 2025 exhibition at Michael Marks in New York City—her first gallery show in the city for eight years—Owens created an immersive environment complete with moving objects (a roll of tape at the front desk, opening flaps and small doors in a gallery) and sounds. Among other elements, she hand-printed silkscreen wallpaper, included a door from a burned-down LA house, and created Wunderkammer-like displays of curated objects.
Laura Owens: Select Exhibitions
Select Solo Exhibitions
- Matthew Marks Gallery, New York City (2025)
- Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne (2022)
- Laura Owens and Vincent Van Gogh, Fondation Vincent Van Gogh Arles (2021)
- Rerun, Transformer Station, CMA The Cleveland Museum of Art (2021)
- Public Art Fund Commission at Terminal B, LaGuardia Airport, New York City (2020)
- Books and Tables, Matthew Marks, Los Angeles (2019)
- MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2018)
- Whitney Museum of American Art, New York City (2017) (and touring)
- Ten Paintings, CCA Wattis Institute for Contemporary Arts, San Francisco (2016)
- Capitain Petzel, Berlin (2015)
- FIAC, Paris (2013)
- The Finley, Los Angeles (2012)
- Kunstmuseum Bonn (2011)
- Gavin Brown’s Enterprise, New York City (2009)
- Works on Paper, Acme, Los Angeles (2008)
- Studio Guenzani, Milan (2007)
- Sadie Coles HQ, London (2006)
- Shiseido Gallery, Tokyo (2005)
- Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia (2004)
- MOCA Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003) (and touring)
- Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston (2001)
- Crown Centre Gallery, Loyola University, Chicago (1998)
- Rosamund Felsen Gallery, Santa Monica (1995)
Select Group Exhibitions
- Lord Arthur Savile’s Crime, Sadie Coles HQ, London (2026)
- 40 Years Galerie Gisela Capitain, Galerie Gisela Capitain, Cologne (2026)
- 360º: Why Do We Paint?, Tianmuli Art Museum, Hangzhou (2025)
- Flowers of Romance—Act One, Ludovico Corsini, Brussels (2024)
- Art Basel (2023)
- Drawing Down the Moon, Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2022)
- The negative version of the official version of things, Balice Hertling, Paris (2021)
- It’s Urgent!, Luma Arles (2020)
- 7 Painters, Greene Naftali, New York City (2019)
- Los Angeles Plays Itself, Malaspina Printmakers, Vancouver (2018)
- The Brightsiders, Verge Centre for the Arts, Sacramento (2017)
- Fine Young Cannibals, Petzel Gallery, New York City (2016)
- Open Source: Art at the Eclipse of Capitalism, Galerie Max Hetzler, Berlin (2015)
- Variations: Conversations in and Around Abstract Painting, LACMA Los Angeles County Museum of Art (2014)
- Small Gems, Crown Point Press, San Francisco (2013)
- Pittura (1995—2009), Studio Guenzani, Milan (2012)
- Continuous Present, Yale University Art Gallery (2009)
- Summer Exhibition, Royal Academy of Arts, London (2007)
- more! more! more!, 5117 Eagle Rock Blvd, Los Angeles (2001)
- Examining Pictures, Whitechapel Art Gallery, London (1999) (and touring)
- Smells Like Vinyl, Roger Merians Gallery, New York City (1995)
Further Reading
- Laura Owens’ website
- 2025 video from the Getty Conservation Institute
- Artist profile page at Matthew Marks
- Artist profile page at Capitain Petzel
- Review of Owens’ 2025 exhibition in The New York Times
Laura Owens FAQs
Does Laura Owens have assistants?
Yes, Laura Owens has always worked with assistants. Many of her works are large-scale, so even moving the canvases requires more than one person. Her assistants also work with her on experimenting with mixing paints with oils, or silkscreen ink with Flashe, in order to create variations in texture.
What are Laura Owens’ influences?
Laura Owens’ practice is highly experimental, so identifying influences is not easy (or perhaps necessary), although some of her hand-made wallpaper is inspired by Chinese and Japanese art. She has said that she is influenced by her peers, and the context in which she finds herself making art, as well as the exchange of ideas.
How does Laura Owens hide things in her artworks?
There is often much more to Laura Owens’ artworks than there first appears. For example, in Untitled (2013), a painting she exhibited at MoMA’s The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World (2014), she added speakers to the stretcher bars, which played music randomly. In her 2025 solo show at Michael Marks Gallery in New York City, she hid entire rooms behind unmarked doors, and within one of those rooms, doors and flaps hidden in the walls revealed miniature paintings.
Ocula
Explore Laura Owens' Exhibitions
Explore and Follow Artists Shaping Contemporary Art
A respected voice in contemporary art discourse.
Focusing on ambitious storytelling and insightful art-world commentary. Ocula Magazine publishes in-depth interviews, critical essays and timely analysis on the artists, exhibitions and ideas driving the global art world.
Learn more about Ocula Magazine
Showcasing the best of the art world.
Ocula partners with galleries from around the world to highlight their artists, artworks and exhibitions. Gallery membership is by application and invitation, with each member vetted by an independent panel.
Learn more about Ocula Membership
Specialises in the sale of major artworks.
Led by a team with deep ties to the world’s leading auction houses, galleries and collectors. Ocula’s advisory team offers bespoke services to high-net-worth clients from around the world who are looking to acquire the best of contemporary and modern art.
Learn more about our team and services