Updates from Owen Brown Artist
August 7, 2025
Just back from a quick week painting in Marin, beating myself against it, but here are two little (12 x 12) paintings of the Visoki Monastery, in Kosovo. A beautiful place - extraordinary inside. These are 12 x 12, on panel, and gold, gold, gold ... it's all glory.
July 31, 2025
Here in part to spend a bit of time on the Black Mountain Ranch catalogue (with an essay by Emily Wolahan, and works by me and Marcel Houtzager) I'm painting in Marin for a week, in a temporary studio in the basement of a desacralized church. Still mad for gold leaf, and here's what's emerged: on paper, 23 x 30, on watercolor paper. I hope to finish another, quite different, before I leave.
July 17, 2025
I returned late last week from a big family gathering in Pajaro Dunes - a beach just west of Watsonville, south of San Francisco. We gathered for my mother-in-law's 98th, and I cooked for 20 - three days in the kitchen. I loved it, as I love cooking for those I am fond of. I also love painting, and this difficult painting was on my easel for quite a time. "Leipzig after Communism." I paint so as not to forget. It's 36x36, acrylic, dm me if you're interested in that, or anything you find on owenbrownartist.com. Special deal for Latchet!
June 26, 2025
I've been at it in the studio... this is the first painting I've done on the wall since before COVID. It's the Amsterdam Centraal (the main train station) and I am back to painting loneliness and isolation... where better than points of arrival and departure? This is 36 x 48, just a test. But if one wants to paint big (and I do) then the wall's the place to be. And yes, it's for sale. Make me an offer, if we can agree, I might stretch it for you, too!
June 19, 2025
Since I last wrote, I've finished this little "Byzantium" series of still lives, and gold leaf. Gold leaf is the devil's own, but it doesn have a wonderful gleam. These are all 12x12 on wooden panel, and ex-studio, are $175. Some have been sold, but I can also make prints for $40. I'm showing the "reds" here, next week, I'll try to show the "blues.
June 5, 2025
A bit less jetlagged, and back in the studio as of last week. I saw plenty of Greek Orthodox icons in Serbia and Albania, beautiful gold backgrounds... time to experiment! Which I'm doing now. We'll see which way things go, in the meantime, this is on a little 12x12 wooden panel, yours for $175. I'll load a couple more, as things progress. This one is gold paint ... gold leaf is the devil's own, but provides satisfactions (followers: any tips for easier application of GOLD LEAF, let me know!)
May 22, 2025
Back in the Twin Cities, after three months. Here's a little painting that was on my easel before I left - 12 x 12 on panel, I touched it up a bit and then I left the Northrup King Building Tuesday, which was without heat in the cold rain (spring in Minnesota!) and my thermometer registered in at 55. I think this will be a summer of figurative work. And by the way, this is for sale ($250), as is, or in a print (less!). Let me know if you want it. Owen
May 1, 2025
I leave Berlin and the Milchhof collab. tomorrow, after 2 months of painting, and 2 successful shows. This was a productive time for me. As my living quarters were right next to my studio, I never stopped working. 25 pieces resulted, all about the Berlin Wall. History is thick here. Most of my paintings were large but I did a series of 12 (9x12 in.) on "Wall Jumpers," East Germans who escaped, or tried to. This is "Mauerspringer 5 -8" . In order, they're Horst Klein, the Bethke Brothers, Winifried Freudenburg, and Reinhard Furrer and friends.
April 17, 2025
Still in Berlin, painting hard (hard to avoid, my living quarters are separated by an-always open door to the studio) and have a successful show on in a gallery in Charlottenberg, high-end area in the City. This piece, 30 x 44, just sold to a New York collector, who saw it online. Would there were more collectors, for there are more paintings!
April 3, 2025
Hello, all - I've been in Berlin on a 2-month residency as guest artist of the Milchhof Kunstverein. They've given me a big studio and a tiny apartment, and I am painting abstracts. Full of enclosures, as so is Berlin, and sometimes, for some reason, echoing the Berlin Wall. The Milchhof is only 40 yards away from where the Wall ran. This piece, 60x22 on paper, is named after the Tiergarten, at whose West end is the famous Berlin Zoo, with cages that either keep us, or the animals, out.
February 27, 2025
Almost done ... almost! Another from the Loneliness series. This is the Q line, leaving Brooklyn. 42x44. No one was talking ... mournful! I'm also going to put up a large abstract, 29x30, Dan-no-Ura, from my "Past Battles" series. The end of the Heian jidai in Japan... there are more past battles than I have art, sadly. I'm off to a several-month artist residency in Berlin this Saturday. Expect to hear from me from there. And contact me if you're interested in pricing for these two paintings. Cheers! Owen
February 6, 2025
I finally finished this big piece (60 x 40), inside of the monorail at SFO. It was difficult, both as per subject (loneliness/isolation) desaturated color balance, and "armature," that is, how shapes are arranged, and where you hope viewers' eyes moves. I don't consider this while painting, I judge my mood, and when I am least fed up, I am done, and start another. You can email me your thoughts on it. If you do, I will email you a note about the decisions I see, now I am done, that I made.
January 30, 2025
Want to start this off with my latest grand-niece, Penelope. She's not for sale! (Cutest thing, and is doing just what a week-old baby is supposed to do...). Aside from that, if I could figure out how to put up two images, there's a 60x40 painting that I've been struggling with for nearly a month, taken from the monorail at San Francisco airport. It's almost done. But when is a painting finished? When it leaves the studio, and hangs on your wall. Next week, surely.
January 23, 2025
Here's a medium-sized painting I did early last year - lots of fun. I must have been channeling the great Max Beckman, wonderful German painter of the last century. But I was also thinking of one of my daughters-in-law, who was a ballerina as a young woman. My wife helped with the tulle, and now it hangs in the corridor outside my studio at Northrup King.
January 16, 2025
One of two of the first paintings completed in 2025! Work goes on - we started the year in clouds and fog. I realized that I was starting a series... sort of. "Past Battles." Perhaps because at the Minneapolis Institute of Art I had seen Otto Dix's Krieg: engravings on WWI. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_War_(Dix_engravings)) Extraordinary. This one is titled "Verdun." (24 x 18, on watercolor paper).
January 8, 2025
I try to limit my studio time to five days a week, but this last weekend ... couldn't help it... something gnawing at me.... you just have that feeling that the geometries of your masterpiece are a little bit off .... so I went in and spent an hour marking everything up with a sharpie. You can draw on an acrylic surface with it, wonderful discovery. Now I have to repaint it all. I'm always searching, the door's open a crack...why can't I walk through it? Tantalizingly close. At any rate, here are a new abstracts! Have a good year, everyone!
December 18, 2024
Neither rain nor snow nor gloom of night stays me from my studio... though COVID might, and my vaccine, coupled with the shot for the flu, put me out of commission for a day or two. Next time I'll have them a week apart. In the meantime, I have some big figurative paintings I'm slaving away at, as well as small abstracts. Here's one, 11x14.5, on watercolor paper.
December 11, 2024
One out of five tiny (7 x 10.5) abstracts on paper that all together make up a fun series. I won't have time to put up the other five until tomorrow, but I wanted these in today. They're acryclic on water color paper, unframed, would look terrific together, which is why although I'm pricing them at $200 a piece, together the five would go for $900. Stay tuned to see all of them!
December 5, 2024
If you paint daily you wind up with a lot of paintings. And if you don't want to go numb in the face of the tragedy of every day, you (or at least I) try to paint it. These 2 kids are Madagascar mica miners. As of a few years ago, 80% of mica miners were children. Because I could not turn away, I painted them. You can find child labor free make-up glitter at monave.com. If I ever buy glitter for painting again, it will be child labor free. The painting is acrylic on canvas: 38x48
November 20, 2024
Just painting away . I had a fairly successful Open Studio in Northrup King - if you come by, it will be even more successful! Studio 207. Here's a little 12 x 12 panel from "Myriorama," number 289. My inventory sheet says I haven't sold it yet - you could be the lucky owner . Or of one of the over 300 sister panels, sitting in boxes, under my varnishing table, all in order.
November 7, 2024
Still painting away, and the studio is undergoing a long-needed refresh. Here's a very large work on paper, 38 x 55 abstract 29.24 "sea creatures". Why sea creatures? Because of the late pink undulations, I guess. But it's an abstract, friends! Pricing? Make me an offer.