Laura Owens claims to be encouraging of failure in her work, but seeing as she can do no wrong in the eyes of the art world, is that really the case?

It’s kind of like the “if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound” question. If Laura Owens fails and no critic gives her sh*t for it, does she really fail?

The things critics have said about Owens’ work is that it borders on obsessive. For example, Benjamin Weissman at Frieze said, “Like the gore inside a filled chocolate, Owens' buttery marks trigger viewer salivation,” which approaches inappropriate. Simmer down there, Benjamin. The novelist, Rachel Kushner said something a little more PG when she explained that Owens “seems to have opened her umbrella and floated over the art-historical baggage collecting on the tarmac.” People just ove her and, as the New York Times so delicately phrased it, her “ugly painting.” Only Laura Owens can make art that is praised as ugly by the New York Times. They explain, “As paradoxical as this sounds, the term is in fact ferocious praise. Ugly art is sloppy, wild and, yes, transgressive, exciting confusion and joy because it abandons commonplace ideas of what is — and looks — pretty.” What kind of sorcery is this?! 

On top of being adored by everyone, Owens also had parents who supported her desire to be an artist. Between her junior and senior years of high school, her parents sent her to Interlochen Summer Camp, a camp for young artists to explore all mediums of art. (Norah Jones went too, so you know it’s legit.) This allowed her to get into RISD and then CalArts, where Owens claims to have worked up a confidence that she didn’t previously have. Now she boldly claims that, “[she] feel[s] no shame about having paintings be as grandiose and ridiculous as possible,” which obviously works for her. But if somehow, somewhere along the road painting and family life don’t work out, Owens has a backup plan. She will be a nun or a midwife, which is pretty 18th century of her, but who are we to judge?