Show exhibits ‘consequences’ of artists’ long careers
The consequences may be intended for artists whose careers span as many years as Suzanne Owens and Suzanne King Randall.
Their “Intended Consequences” show of oil-wax paintings and monotypes by Owens and acrylics by Randall is at Paseo Art Space, 3022 Paseo.
Mythic, spiritual and cultural concerns play a role in work by Owens, more than in Randall’s conventional yet expressive paintings of female nudes.
Two Owens oils show us a skeleton offering red fruit that is “More Than Flesh and Bone,” and a vegetal figure “Spinning Seeds at the Red Cup,” as if blowing a horn.
Fiery auras surround the head and spring from the midsection of a Buddha-like squatting female figure in Owens’ oil-wax “Goddess Headlights.”
Two more Owens’ oils depict a Janus-like twofaced character “Torn Between Now and Then,” and birds with a dark lady, enjoying or enduring “Evenings Without You.”
Owens has been an arts administrator, as well as artist, and Randall continues to explore all media “since art is her life long profession.” One can almost see through the body of a nude woman, seated “On the Beach,” leaning on a fence, in front of the sky, in one fine Randall acrylic.
A darkly silhouetted “Saturday” model turns away, almost shyly, while most of the body of a second subject is covered in Randall’s “Lime Sherbert II.”
Filling the picture plane, almost heroically, is a seated, more massively proportioned model, with a serene “Charming” air, in Randall’s work of that title.
A glamorous woman in big stylish glasses stares at us over one shoulder, with the landscape and horizon line showing through her, in Randall’s “Plane Site.” The strong, flexible legs of a seated female “Youth” seen dynamic, and ready to run out of the studio, once the pose is over, in another excellent Randall acrylic.
The “Intended Consequences” show is highly recommended in its run through Oct. 27 at the gallery home of the Paseo Art Association.
— John Brandenburg, for The Oklahoman