Unprecedented Presence
The extraordinary, expansive
and undiscovered work of
artist Danny Owens
[ pause
for effect ]
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To Recognize The Unseen…
 The work presented here has developed in
private over vast amounts of time, effort and
isolation. It is born without instruction, or
derivation, or commercial manipulation. What
you see is pure artistic effort, realized in beauty.
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The Beginning Was An End
 The artist chose to be an artist. A career was
abandoned. A path begun. Paintings were
made, a show put on, friends attended, but no
paintings were purchased. The artist saw his
work and thought then that painting was about
the act more than the end. So he focused on
the essence of the process, ignored
statements and escapes and emotional
escapades, and began again free from
preconception.
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Painting The Basic
 A new approach began in April, 1987. The first
stroke was crude and fundamental. It lead to
another, and then to more. Each effort informed
the next, each painting became the teacher for
how to paint, each image the template for other
images. A continuous process was born.
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The Basics Of Painting
The artist’s approach brought him to confront and
master the most fundamental aspects of painted art.
 Materials: Brush, Paint, Surface and Hand
 Rules: Line, Color, Balance and Form
 Subject: Object and Ground
 Viewer: Maker and Spirit
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The Development Of Skill
 The artist learned to craft art. The hand
learned finesse and control. The body learned
peace and acceptance. The eye learned vision
and discretion. The mind learned discovery
and experimentation.
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The Evolution Of Pattern
 Repetition of form occurred within every
painting, across all painted work. Patterns were
born, grew, changed and evolved into more
patterns. Species and families and kingdoms of
shapes came to be. A self-contained, wildly
populated visual world emerged.
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A Propagation Of Species
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An empire of
original work
was manifest…
As individual
paintings, groups of
paintings, and the
entire body of work.
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The Abandon Of Image
 Missing in this long process was what is most
popular in today’s art - contrivance of image.
 Abstract by happenstance
 Intentionally rendered
 Unguided by precedent
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Abandon Allowed Experimentation
 With freedom to explore
and an imperative for
parsimony, the works
migrated within the
boundlessness of its
own style and across
the boundaries of
available surfaces.
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Exploration Lead To Reversal
 Paintings progressed
onto acrylic plexi-glass,
allowing fast motions
and smooth strokes. The
transparency of surface
lead to painting on the
back of the canvas,
revealing a new view
of learned skills.
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Following Visions Lead
 Each new work in
this reverse-painted
approach strengthened
Danny Owens’
understanding of
seeing, perceiving and
the seeking-ofmeaning-out-of themeaningless
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Dimension In A Flat Plane
 He learned to work depth into what was seen, though
it was physically absent in the mass of the piece.
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Carving With Color…
 The process is a spell, a dance, a careful romance with
the continuous basics of painting
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Sculpting With Light
 Ultimately, the artist Danny Owens learned to work the
energy of illumination
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Objects Of Mystery
 The result is a body of work
possessing unusual qualities
of visual, mental and spiritual
candor.
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Multiple Paintings, One Space
 Changes in the direction and
intensity of light are
revelations of hidden scenes
 Visual transformation means each
viewing is like the first viewing
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Worlds Within Worlds
 Changing the scale and orientation of the
work reveal paintings nested within
paintings nested within paintings
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Incremental Profundity
 Reverse painting has lead to a greater truth of art:
 Each stroke reveals a moment of creative quality
 Free expression is captured in its making
 Skill, experience and intent guide the hand
 The finished work is visible only when finished
 So then has contrivance of image been further
removed, and implication within image intensified.
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The End Is A Beginning
 The artist has arrived at a
starting point. He has learned to
begin at the end, and end with a
beginning. Just as the highlights
of the work start each piece,
and its far background is its
finish, so too has his life
followed a process summed up
as “opposite by intent.”
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Humble Artist
 Gregarious and mysterious
 Loving and garrulous
 Focused and adventurous
 Free and iconoclastic
 Simple and inscrutable
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Extraordinary Properties
This body of work represents a most unusual opportunity:
 Autonomous - created in isolation
 Self-Generated - references only itself for visual basis
 Spontaneous - each stroke is visible to the viewer, most are
painted out of the sight of the artist himself
 Original - not based on, or attempting to convey, any known – or
even knowable – image
 Provocative - convey a multitude of perceptual patterns and cues
 Luminous - transformed by light and into exotic data from
unknowable realms
 Irreproducible - each painting is the first and only one of its kind
that can ever be
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What You Just Saw

The images in this presentation include
complete works as well as close-cropped
sections of paintings
There are multitudes of such images within
each finished piece
The artist works almost entirely with just one
brush (everything is done with brush stokes,
not by using “texturing” tools)
There was no editing or photographic tricks to
produce these images
These works are best viewed in person, in
hand, under direct focused halogen light, with
imagination fully active
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The Presenter
Noumena®
Merchants of Beauty and Intellect
Representing assets of mind and matter from beyond the known.
Experimental Art
Experimental Instruments
Experimental Ideas
Office: 972-506-3730
Cell: 817-343-3965
Cell: 817-994-5459
Email: noumena@dannyowens.net
See the artist’s work, and noumena’s words, at: www.dannyowens.net
Read the artist’s words and see more work at: myspace.com/dannyowensartist
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