We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Owen Brown. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Owen below.

Owen, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

After a lifetime of doing what I do, I know how little I know. Years in art school, followed by years applying paint – there’s no way to “speed up,” there are only ways to impede any progress (which itself is ephemeral.) You have to show up. Every day you don’t paint, you won’t have again. Showing up is the most important skill, followed by close observation, and humility. Forget about yourself (as no one cares about you anyways) it’s the object that’s important, not you. Remember what Hokusai, the greatest of Ukiyo-e artists, said:

When I am 80 you will see real progress. At 90 I shall have cut my way deeply into the mystery of life itself. At 100, I shall be a marvellous artist. At 110, everything I create; a dot, a line, will jump to life as never before. To all of you who are going to live as long as I do, I promise to keep my word. I am writing this in my old age.”

He passed away aged 88. On his deathbed, he apparently said: “If only Heaven will give me just another ten years… Just another five more years, then I could become a real painter”.

So… paint!

Owen, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I am a painter. I became a painter because I was entranced by the beauty of the world, and its reflections (sometimes obscure!) on the canvas. I paint for myself, I paint on commission. I paint abstractly and figuratively. I have stopped trying to please the public. You want to cover a wall with a painting? I’ll listen closely to what you like, I will try to understand who you are, and then I’ll wack away at it. Maybe we’ll wind up with a piece that you find pleasing and that I feel is honest and virtuous. Or maybe we won’t.

How to know? You get to review your commission as I paint it, from first sketch to final varnish, and you get to opine. Often I accept your criticism: there’s give and take here. But I can’t, always, if I fear it affects negatively the integrity and virtue of the painting. I don’t want you to have anything less than the best I can give you.

Alright – so here’s a fun one. What do you think about NFTs?

They’re technology gone mad, a fetish. If all property is theft, what is a string of ones and zeros that’s only available temporarily on a computer screen? Angel dandruff!

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

Society can best support artists, as long as we live in a capitalist society, by paying them for their production. Artists can best support society by demanding to be paid.

* What if no one wants to pay for the product? Too bad for you, oh artist! Then work for the love of it – I often do. But quit whining.
* What about people that are happy to splash out on an enormous, expensive house, but stiff the painter? They’re cheap jerks.
* What about artists who think that they’re important because people spend lots of money on their paintings? They’ve got an odd value system.

But let’s get away from money money money: best support would be if non-commercial activities, such as painting, were accepted and appreciated. You don’t have to make/have lots of money to be special, to feel valued, to be of value. There is more to life than that. But it gets hammered by the almighty dollar. We have to get away from the illusion that wealth=happiness. That’s what would be the way to tend a “creative ecosystem,” and encourage it to bloom.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: owen_artist
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/owen.brown.733

Image Credits
all images copyright Owen Brown