Southeastern Contemporary Art Gallery to exhibit artwork by Ruth Owens
Tuesday, September 29, 2020
by: Tonya Lowentritt
HAMMOND – The Department of Visual Art + Design at Southeastern Louisiana University
will host an art exhibit by New Orleans based artist Ruth Owens titled “Black Outdoors:
Crossing Boundaries” at the university’s Contemporary Art Gallery, located at 100
East Strawberry Stadium.
The exhibition is free and open to the public from Oct. 8 – 29 and will include
recent paintings and video works by Owens. Contemporary Art Gallery hours are Monday
through Thursday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., with extended hours until 8 p.m. on Wednesdays,
and Friday 8 a.m. to 12 p.m.
As part of the exhibit, a public Zoom conversation between Owens and Gallery
Director Cristina Molina will take place Tuesday, Oct. 13, at noon.
“The exhibition will debut a selection of works that expands the narrative around
racial identity. Putting forth the concept that identity is fluid and open, Ruth Owens’
subjects cross boundaries that hold in fixed and stable constructs,” said Molina.
“The black and brown bodies in this exhibition venture into the outdoors, which has
been historically an uninviting or dangerous space for people of color. The Great
American Outdoors and the Arian alpine landscape have taken on meaning as a place
for spiritual, physical, and psychological growth that does not include black people.
‘Black Outdoors’ crosses this boundary and examines both the healing power and the
dangers faced by black people in these spaces.”
Owens was born in 1959 to a young German woman and a black service man from Georgia.
Her childhood nomadic military lifestyle was complicated by restrictions to mixed
families in many communities and laid the basis for the formation of her cultural
identity and, therefore, her artistic practice, Molina explained.
Owens is a master of fine art graduate from the University of New Orleans and
is currently a Joan Mitchell Center Artist in Residence. Her artwork is represented
by Jonathan Ferrara Gallery, and she currently serves as a participating member in
the artist-run collective, The Front, located in the New Orleans St. Claude art corridor.
For more information, contact the gallery at 985-549-5080.
