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Refugees in the camps | Oil And Acrylic Painting in Paintings by Owen Brown. Item made of synthetic
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Created and Sold by Owen Brown

Owen Brown

Refugees in the camps - Paintings

Price $6,300

This was painted in 2017, in reflection of the ongoing refugee crisis in East Africa/the desperation in Somalia. The faces are taken from photos of women in refugee camps, the lambent figure at the bottom, as well as the skull-like object heading right ... well, an artist's anguish. Art can't do much, but maybe it can help pay attention.

The price is ex-location. Half of your purchase will be donated to Doctors without Borders. I am also available for commissions.

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Item Refugees in the camps
Created by Owen Brown
As seen in Private Residence, St. Louis, MO
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Owen Brown
Meet the Creator
Wescover creator since 2020
Only art can make articulate yearning.

I received my artistic training at Yale College and at California College of Art. My works have been collected in the US and abroad, I have pieces at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco and at the Weisman Museum of Minneapolis. I have also done installations (one, covering a quarter section, is owned by the Land Institute in Salina, KS) and collaborate with artists of other practices, such as the choreographer Anat Shinar.

I was taught in the figurative tradition, but I also work rather abstractly, and I don’t always have a theme that I want to put forth. I don’t know how I will finish when I start, except that there is something within that I want to express, something that I want to build, something that I want to say. Painting is not the same as speech, even when it is depicting a scene. We leap to story, but it is the story behind the story, behind speech, that is my subject matter.

My work is about longing, time, emotion, loss and recovery. I keep these in mind:

From the contemporary American poet Mary Oliver:

“Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

And from the German romantic poet Holderlin:

“Where danger lies, there deliverance also grows.”

These help me understand the process a bit better, where the painting begins to reveal itself. I was trained to paint every day, and I do so, although much of creation lies in wait for the artist. Conversely, the artist himself must wait for something to happen. Stillness is as important as action.

On my good days I am a painter. On my best moments, I am someone who is trying to uncover and describe something new, so that we can have it within our range of humanity. That should be enough.