Markers of Time: Prints by Marilyn A. Owens

Soo Art Center, Minneapolis 2015 

By Mason Riddle

The prints of Marilyn A. Owens could be considered a type of lament, an aesthetic lament for the passage of time, for people and places now lost, and for the events that often bring unwanted change or movement. For Owens the act of migration has figured prominently in her life-story and, the abstract notion of time has played a critical, if not sometimes ethereal role in her artistic practice as evidenced in her two series of etchings Landmarks and From a Churchyard. In the former, the buildings and constructions refer to sights in her local community in Norway, and, in the latter, the gravestones portrayed, whether alone or in groups, symbolize the passage of time and that which has gone before.

Owens was born in 1950 in Durham City, which lies in North East England. Her father was a policeman and, thus, the family moved six times throughout County Durham before she left home to attend Sunderland University (which has been an important center for education since 674 AD) at age eighteen. In 1972, Owens graduated from Newcastle University. With a friend, she later moved to Norway where she continued her studies, graduating in 1995 with a B.A. in the History of Art, History and English from Oslo University. "Little did I realize that when I moved to Norway it would be for life," she says.

The flatness of the landscape of North East England, with its uninterrupted horizon lines and big skies, are compositional elements that linger in Owens' work today. Although Norway is a mountainous country, Owens lives by the sea, whose open vista "compensates a lot."

Owens works in a flat, abbreviated style that emphasizes the narrative and associative quality of her work. She provides just enough information so that the viewer is prompted to bring his or her ideas to the work. Although specific meaning is elusive in Owens' prints, most are rooted in personal events or particular places, and reflect the intangible passage of time.

For example, "Fort", from the Landmark series, references the German occupation of Norway during the Second World War, she explains. "The German soldiers built this fortress in case of an allied invasion. The guns are not there now and the fort is used as a recreational, picnic area. I have concentrated on the camouflage patterns of the walls, and its oppressive appearance, especially in winter. The image is a metaphor for coldness, hardness and lack of leniency. A kind of severity."

Owens notes that both England and Norway have long traditions of using stones for markers, monuments and memorials, and she is fascinated by their "everlasting quality of ages past and for ages to come." Such ancient stones or markers figure prominently in her work, notably in the series From a Churchyard.

Coverlet is one of the most arresting etchings comprising the series From a Churchyard. It was inspired by an event in Brevik when Owens came upon a gravestone engraved only with a child's Christian name. The area around the grave was rough and untended. Haunted by the experience, she created Coverlet. To evoke a sense of loss as well as comfort in the etching, she placed a fur coverlet on the barren ground before the child's gravestone. To further amplify the poignancy of the scene, Owens isolated the gravestone on an empty expanse of land with a distant, high horizon line – like the landscape of her youth – rather than portraying it among a sea of other markers.

Owens thinks of her subjects as "emotional metaphors" and she describes her relationship with them as a dialogue. "The subject is a thing in and of itself and it is my translation of it that is important," she says. "I am trying to describe an inner state."

Owens, who has been influenced by Norway's tradition of printmaking, works in a variety of media. However, she calls printmaking as an indirect method of working and she especially likes the process because it provides time for reflection, given the many stages it requires. "Time is always an important factor. I find printmaking a more meditative form of working, than say painting," Owens states. "Printmaking is important to my practice as a whole. And it certainly leads me further."