Will Owen
University of Pennsylvania
The Porch At 4 AM
Reclaimed Plywood, Epoxy, Soot
3' x 2' x 3'
2022
Artist Biography
Will Owen, originally from North Carolina, U.S., is an artist, composer, and curator currently based in Philadelphia, PA. Will works mainly with sound, sculpture, and mark-making. He has exhibited internationally in China, Denmark, France, Iceland, Freetown Christiania, Wales, Pakistan, and Russia. Additionally he has shown work nationally at The Museum of the Moving Image (NYC), Philadelphia Water Works Museum, abandoned gas stations, Black Mountain College Museum, interstate buses, Independent Seaport Museum (Philadelphia) and Flux Factory (NYC) among other locations.
Artist Statement
At the core of my artistic practice is an obsession with urgent state changes: physical, political, social, emotional, and agential. Though I use many methodologies and materials to point towards these state changes, I return to three: sculpture, sound, and mark-making.
I was born in rural Appalachia (North Carolina, U.S.), near Black Mountain College—a singular pedagogical school whose horizontal social structure and multimodal approach remain an influence. The natural landscape in which I was reared seeps into my creative thinking as much as any built environment where I now live and work. This hybridized reality of being on lands that have changed “ownership” through various types of extraction informs my understanding of place, heritage, and ecosystem.
In the work I use a variety of methods in service of the state changing concepts, such as welding, metal machining, forging, mold-making, hot hammering, whittling, wax coating, brazing, and more.