Hanna M. Owens graduated summa cum laude from Towson University in 2011, with majors in Art + Design (painting, drawing, printmaking concentration) and French. She has just received an MFA in Studio arts from the University of Illinois Chicago. Hanna recently exhibited a video installation at the 52nd Ann Arbor Film Festival, and upcoming events include performances with collaborator Soheila Azadi at the Rapid Pulse International Performance Festival in Chicago and Seed Space in Nashville. Her website is: http://hannamowens.com/
Tell us about your current work-- what it is and what it's about.
Currently I'm working mostly in video and performance. I also write pretty seriously now. I do performances that mash up monologue, dance, video projection, music, and audience interaction. My work has become very feminist and I've found that the most important things to me are those concerning the body, language, and intimacy. I pay particular attention to how the internet is affecting those things.
What artists are you looking at? What are you reading, listening to, learning about related to your work?
Tracey Emin, Sarah Lucas, Sophie Calle, the filmmaker/my advisor Jennifer Reeder. Stories by Ludmilla Petrushevskaya and Abigail Thomas. The Lover by Marguerite Duras. The Passion Accoring to GH by Claire Lispector. I was super affected by Fatih Akin's film Head On. I made a whole body of work about how the actress Sibel Kekilli got a nose job after this role. I read a lot about the artist Ann Liv Young and wrote about her performance and character work as "adolescent drag" in part of my MFA thesis in two essays: On Adolescence and On A New Feminism. I really like the internet poet PJ Goring. Pop music about dejected lovers. Also Motown is good for that. My favorite thing I did in grad school was slowing down Alicia Keys' pop ballad Have You Ever Tried Sleeping With A Broken Heart. That track ( http://vimeo.com/88167873 ) will be bouncing around in my skull For Ever.
You focused on painting and drawing at Towson-- how did your work evolve to encompass non-traditional forms?
I had entered text into my drawings and paintings and slowly I removed the image and the paint and whatever else to leave just the language. It seemed more efficient. After a couple months in my MFA program I realized that painting doesn't achieve the immediacy or urgency or humor that I need art to provide. I like things to be super emotional, like overwhelmingly intense. Moving image and sound and live performance do that for me. I subtitle the hell out of my videos. Plus continuing to paint or trying to become "a good painter" started to feel like I was filling out an application for the Boys Club. Sitting through grad school critiques with people going on and on about paintings started to feel like such a waste of time. I decided that I would use this time to experiment and present performance and really push myself to make work that I'd always wanted to make.
Work from undergrad (next two images):
You studied abroad in Senegal your junior year-- what influence has that had on you and your artwork?
A lot of my work about nostalgia still stems from the shock of coming out of that experience. I fell in love with a place and with people that then once I left, were so far from me and although we had the phone and email and sometimes Skype we mostly just had memory. Potent memory. Nostalgia became a very palpable force in my life and has affected my work ever since. Also those women gave me my sass. That's where I really found my humor in mocking masculinity.
What did you do between graduating from Towson and beginning grad school?
After I graduated from Towson, I got a job teaching English in the French Ministry of Education's TAPIF program. I lived in the north of France in Calais. It was a cold and gray year and I could see the coast of England from the beach. I traveled a lot around France and Belgium, went to London... Spent a lot of time in Lille and Paris. My French got really good. Also finally went to Turkey for the first time. Since then I've been back and have learned a good bit of Turkish.
Why did you want to go to grad school and how did you choose an MFA program?
I wanted to spend the time focusing and figuring out what it is I want to say with my art. I wanted lots of constant feedback from different types of artists and people. I wanted a reason to move to another city. I wanted the funding to move to another city. I chose UIC because their program is super interdisciplinary and because they offered me the most funding. And because Chicago is awesome and it's a good next step from Baltimore and before NY.
What are your plans post-MFA (short-term or long-term)?
I think I'll start painting again ;) Also I just got a job as a nanny for twin baby boys that are going to be born this summer... so I will start with them at the end of August. I worked this past year as a nanny for another family that has twin boys. I started when they were 4 months old and I fell so hard in love with them but they just moved to the suburbs so we had to part ways. I love taking care of babies and I am really excellent at it. Plus now twins are my niche. I realized, through a bunch of other jobs that I hated, I don't really like working in ART. So this is a nice balance of making money doing something that brings me a lot of joy, and then having my art be something separate from the hustle of supporting myself. It worked out really nicely this past year while I was finishing school, so we'll see how it goes after I graduate. I am really looking forward to not being in school, and just having a job, my apartment, friends, and having art be it's own thing in my life. And with upcoming shows out of town I need a home base so I think I'll stay in Chicago for a while.
Any question you wish I'd asked?
Have you sold any work recently? NOPE.
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