Sikelela Owen’s Artist Studio

Sikelela Owen

Sikelela Owen (b. 1984) is a British-born artist, living and working in London. She holds a PG Diploma from the Royal Academy Schools and her work was featured in 2015 Thames and Hudson publication ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’.

She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including solo exhibitions at the James Freeman Gallery (2020), HSBC space London (2018), and LdM University Gallery, Florence (2020).  Group exhibitions includes Mall Gallery, London (2020), Gesso Space, Vienna (2019), Jerwood Space, West Sussex (2015), and Spaces, London (2017).  In 2019, Owen was an Abbey Fellow at the British School at Rome and in 2020 worked with Hospital Rooms Charity.

Owen’s work is predominately made up of loosely figurative paintings, drawings, and prints of friends, family, and people of interest, all stemming from a core interest in ideas of community and intimacy. Her primary references come from art history, personal imagery and publicly-sourced materials. In turn, she pairs these with her use of undefined spaces and underpainting, bringing a certain distance and unpredictability to the work. This unpredictability causes her figures to appear as if they have been briefly caught in a moment, one that is fleeting – viewers remain bystanders to the rich worlds of Owen’s canvases, observers of the equally rich and quotidian intimacies of their constituents.