Hilton Owen
Anonymous. You can be anyone when you're lost in a moment. What is better, is when you find a moment to come back. Painting with acrylic and oil paint and influenced by the techniques of icons, Hilton Owen finds ways to make anonymity exciting and valuable, when in the social media world of today that seems to be what many people want to avoid.
Striped Top, 2022, oil and acrylic on canvas, 40 x 30 cm. © Hilton Owen
An avid and alert learner, he studied fine arts at the University of Tasmania and began painting early. Guided by instinct he does not pre-plan what it is that he is painting, this enhances the potential of experimentation that occurs on canvas. He has had multiple solo exhibitions of his paintings and awards that have come from many. Finding visual inspiration from photography and the world around him, evolution is beginning.
Like a broken memory within the scenes, he uses form, colour and positioning to engage the mind. He is interested in all that occurs around him, the observer that paints the relatable and investigates this through the painting in a way that makes it new and exciting. Owen has learnt ways to create his own practice and the evolution of his art over time, adapting with the cubism, semi-abstract and slowly breaking the realism format he is making something desirable.
Curtains In The Breeze, 2022, acrylic on canvas, 85 x 85 cm. © Hilton Owen
What is particularly beautiful with Owen’s artworks is how they embrace and enhance colour with geometric shaping. Perfect for the interior design of a room, in multiple settings. Bringing out the details in colour and construction it is almost becoming like stained glass windows in effect.
Bar Conversation, acrylic on canvas, 50 x 60 cm © Hilton Owen
Observing society and making the primarily ignored moments of life feel memorable. He saw a moment, recreated and conquered. Taking what can become meaningless tasks becomes an experience to relive and think again, like a short in a film we watch and wonder as the soft pastels or the bold triumphant colours invite us to wonder about the feelings of the unknown subject.
Commuter, 2021, oil and acrylic on canvas, 55 x 65 cm © Hilton owen
Who are we when we are ready to go to work when we leave the comfort of the home office we created? Who are we when we are in a rush? Do we need to be anybody when we watch how it is for others? Does it matter at all anyway? When we think back it does.
In a world where every action we do is almost highlighted by a TikTok, a passerby or sitting somewhere and thinking about what we post next for the update in our lives. What is sometimes better, is seeing the art that hangs on the wall observed but unawaiting. Beauty is encapsulated in the unobserved expectation. Sometimes an artist can have no expectation at all of what is seen. Can you?
Hilton Owen was interviewed May 2022
By Danny Booth