Renée Owen
- River Tracings: Mapping the Dead Zones - 60 inch long indigo dyed triptych embroidered with 400 river stones & roots, an homage to illegal water diversions effect on the Navarro River.
- The Tide Takes Her: The changing tide depicted by 1500 embroidered reef knots, a tactile ritual honoring the artist’s mothers’ death and ashes spread at sea. Covers of natural indigo-dyed vintage kimono silk & shibori.
- Firestormed: Atlas of a Lost Neighborhood: Installed in shape of satellite map, plant dyed & eco-printed paper embroidered and burned to evoke the homes & lives lost in one of California's most deadly wildfires.
- This Old (Demolished) House: Embroidered x's on felt plat maps mark vintage homes demolished in a decade in a historic neighborhood, landfills overflowing with their bones.
- This Old Demolished House II: Mr. Mitchell & His Chickens: Repurposed paint tarps embroidered and collaged with photos of vintage homes, mounted on felt, depicting people displaced by progress.
- On the Backs of Slaves: The history of coffee in rusty objects of torture & woven coffee filters, paper fragile as skin, the red thread like stitches sewn into whip marks on a slave's back.
- Transplants: An elegy to trees & the clear-cutting of non-native flora. Paper pages ecoprinted with leaves, roots, seeds, kitchen scraps & rusty metal. Aren’t we all invasive species?
- Stitchwork: An homage to grandmothers “women’s work.†Markmaking embroidery, like blood from needle pricks, on coptic bound pages of needlework patterns & vintage covers.
- Contrails: Abstract calligraphic painted artists' book and plant dyed, eco-printed felt pouch, a poetic testament to saying goodbye to mountain wilds.
- Lost in the Forest: An invitation to tread lightly on the earth. Naturally dyed and ecoprinted pages of embroidered plants, silk covers and calligraphied poetry in a felt wrapper.
- Resuscitation: Linen quilt of old book cloth from landfill books, vintage book spines, paper, embroidery & frottage, in homage to the disappearing practice of reading real books.
- Hole in the Moon: A modern Victorian book of days, this sculptural, multi-layered book encapsulates the seasons, poetry and found objects from the artist’s daily walks.
- Sliding Home: Silhouettes from vintage photos, embroidery & original poetry connect us to our roots, the artist’s ancestors, and the slower rhythms of the south in the last century.
- Insect Life: A curiosity cabinet of natural & found objects. Artist-made box with ecoprinted vintage silk, housing a mini handbound book of Victorian pages on the life of bugs.
- Vanishing Act: An old wooden letterpress type case houses a time capsule of handbound miniature books, vintage photos & objects from bygone towns & libraries, all vanishing.
- Extinct: Illuminating mankind's destruction of our natural world. An accordion wire-bound book of bones, vintage book cloth, scrap metal & found objects on a redwood slab.
Renee Owen’s fiber and book art sculpture combines repurposed, found objects with fabric, paper, natural dye & eco-printing, embroidery and calligraphy, elevating the detritus of everyday life to newfound purpose and meaning. The richly tactile assemblages embody a wabi sabi aesthetic, finding beauty in reuse and the rustic simplicity of imperfection. Nuanced work which communicates a keen awareness of conservation, preservation and impermanence, her work celebrates each small moment. Sometimes startling, always revealing, it exposes and explores the fragility of the natural world, our daily lives and our connections with one another. Living and working in Northern California as a psychotherapist, Renee has exhibited her award-winning art in numerous juried shows. It is held in both public & private collections, and was featured in Fiber Arts Now, Surface Design Journal Exhibition in Print, Letter Arts Review, Contemporary Haibun Online & Lark’s 500 Handmade Books, Vol. II. Her poetry, featured in or inspiring much of her art, is published internationally in print & online journals and in the award winning collections This One Life (Backstreet Press) and Alone on a Wild Coast (Snapshot Press). Renee is passionate about combining her poetry with music and performs in a variety of settings. Contact her for more information, at reneeowen@sbcglobal.net or her website www.reneeowenartandpoetry.com.