Untitled, 2000
Acrylic, il, and graphite on canvas
Collezione Giuseppe Iannaccone, Milan

“With this canvas, Owens embraced the depiction of people for the first time, marking a turning point in her career.  She recalls: “After making many paintings and drawings using images of animals, I realised I was avoiding the human figure.”  As with her first diptych of monkeys, also on view in this show, she found inspiration in an art historical source, in this case a painting by Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec from around 1892. Two figures lock eyes tenderly, if ambiguously, beneath a floral quilt that is based on another of Owen’s paintings.  The bed seems to float within a dreamy expanse of pure colour, conjuring a muddy atmosphere of intimacy and emotion that Owens would increasingly explore over the next decade.”