Blue Over Time: Robert Owen—A Survey at Heide
Today, 83-year-old Robert Owen is one of Australia’s preeminent contemporary artists, and the subject of a retrospective at the Heide Museum titled Blue Over Time.
But in 1963, a young Owen arrived in Hydra, a tiny island off the coast of Greece, right after finishing art school. It marked the beginning of a formative period in Owen’s burgeoning artistic career, which he chatted to Broadsheet about last month. It's a chapter of his life that includes living on the island with a bohemian set featuring Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen and American poet Jack Hirschman; a solar eclipse that deepened his fascination with light and colour; and creating works from found objects, often painting with house paint and varnish as they were easily accessible on Hydra.
In recent years, Owen shifted his focus from the canvas to large-scale public works and installations. Among his public commissions are high-profile art projects such as Discobolus (2000), a sculptural tribute to the Olympic Games’ Greek origins situated at Sydney’s Olympic Park in Homebush, and Webb Bridge (2003), a collaboration in Docklands with architecture firm Denton Corker Marshall that features a design inspired by Koori fishing traps.
Blue Over Time is a survey of this illustrious career, featuring a selection of Owen’s works spanning six decades. The earliest piece is a watercolour that dates from 1953 when Owen, just 15 at the time, borrowed a book of Albert Namatjira’s paintings from the local library in his hometown of Wagga Wagga. Inspired by the famous Indigenous artist, Owen tried his hand at painting watercolours in Namatjira’s style. Two new works also appear in the show, including one featuring a set of 64 Buddha heads made of beeswax that gaze upon a ram’s head encased in salt from Lake Eyre and on through the gallery window behind it.
Broadsheet is a proud media partner of Heide.
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