Robert Owen

Robert George Owen (born 29 June 1937) is an Australian artist and curator. He lives and works in Melbourne, Australia.

Early life and education Robert Owen was born in Sydney in 1937, and studied sculpture at the National Art School in Sydney under Lyndon Dadswell.

Art practice and career He has played a formative role in the development of some of Australia's major arts education and institutional structures.

Owen's art practice includes sculpture, installation, painting, photography and major public commissions. His work is linked through a poetic and intuitive sensitivity to the expressive potential of space, light, colour, context and materials. Throughout his career Owen has ‘steered a path between science, metaphysics and abstraction as a way of investigating the representational sublime.'

After graduating from art school in 1962, Owen lived on the Greek isle of Hydra from 1963 to 1966 and became part of an expatriate community that included George Johnston, Charmian Clift, William Lederer, Leonard Cohen,

In 1975 Owen returned to Australia and became actively involved in the Sydney art culture, both as an artist, representing Australia at the 38th Venice Biennale in 1978; and as a Founding Member of Artspace and Member of The Biennale of Sydney. Owen's experience as a curator of contemporary art includes Sound Works for the 1982 Biennale of Sydney and the exhibition Inland for the Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, Melbourne in 1990. Since the early 2000s, Owen has also undertaken Public Art commissions that have extended his installation practice in a broader social context. and is a member of Artery Co-operative Ltd.

Exhibitions Owen has had over forty years experience as an artist, exhibiting widely since the late 1960s in over 40 solo and 110 group exhibitions in Australia and internationally, and has represented Australia in major international exhibitions including the 38th Venice Biennale in 1978. Major solo exhibitions of Owen's work have included Different Lights Cast Different Shadows, The 2nd Balnaves Foundation Sculpture Project at the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney, in 2004; and Between Shadow and Light – London Works 1966-1975 at Monash University Gallery, Melbourne, in 1999. and 1986; D’un autre Continent: L’Australie la rêve et le réel at the ARC/Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, France in 1983; Olympiad of Art at the Seoul Olympic Park, Korea in 1988; Australian Sculpture Triennial, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne in 1981, 1987 and 1993; at Auckland City Art Gallery, Auckland, NZ in 1994; Spirit + Place: Art in Australia 1861–1996 at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney, in 1996–97; Contemporary Australia: Optimism at the Gallery of Modern Art Brisbane Queensland in 2008; Art & Kabbalah: Contemporary Responses to an Ancient Tradition at the Jewish Museum of Australia, Melbourne, in 2000; Australia, Contemporary Non-Objective Art at the Museum im Kulturspeicher, Würzburg, Germany, in 2008 and Sight & Sound, Music and Abstraction in Australian Art at the Arts Centre Melbourne, in 2010.

Awards and commissions Owen has received several of the nation's highest honours in the visual arts.

Collections Owen's work is represented in all of Australia's national and state galleries, and in public and private collections worldwide including the British Museum, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Israel Museum, Jerusalem; The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Olympic Sculpture Park, Seoul, Korea; the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo, Japan; Museo de Arts de São Paulo, Brazil, National Institute of Fine Arts, Mexico City, National Gallery of Modern Art, New Delhi, India; Staatliche Museum, West Berlin; Banque National De Paris, France; the Art Gallery of New South Wales, Sydney; and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Sydney.

Publications Wayne Tunnicliffe, Zara Stanhope & George Alexander, ‘Different Lights Cast Different Shadows’, catalogue essays, Art Gallery of New South Wales 2004 John Barbour, Paul Carter and George Alexander; Robert Owen (ed.), 'Inland, Corresponding Places', exhibition catalogue, Australian Centre for Contemporary Art, 1990 George Alexander, 'Transits', monograph, Wagga Wagga City Art Gallery, NSW, 1988