Jonathan Owen

Jonathan Owen specialises in a kind of elegant vandalism. By reducing his subjects he delicately examines the essential qualities of an object or image, transforming their entire meaning and presenting the viewer with the curiously unexpected.

In his forthcoming show at Ingleby Gallery, Owen presents a series of new “drawings”, photographs found in books of civic sculptures are gently erased, leaving a ghostly trace. A group of new sculptures work in a similar way. Small found wooden figures are intricately carved to create a disjointed and reduced version of the original character, presenting an unsolvable yet innately intriguing puzzle.

Owen was born in Liverpool in 1973 and graduated from Edinburgh College of Art MFA in 2000. He currently lives and works in Edinburgh.