The Great Return – Atlanta-based artist Charlie Owens on life, art and the road to Basel.

This week hundreds of galleries and thousands of artists swarmed the southern tip of Florida for this Year’s Art Basel Miami Beach show. Amongst those in attendance was Atlanta’s own Charlie Owens – returning for his second year in a row. Born and raised in Knoxville, Tennessee, Owens moved to Atlanta when he was seventeen to attend the Art Institute. After eight years of freelance design-work and a brief stint creating phonebook ads Owens began working at Turner Studios, providing graphics for TNT, TBS, and Cartoon Network. But like so many others who have known interstate love, Owens was beckoned north by his now-wife who owned a vintage retail store in Chicago at the time.

Now, one would think that a town – nay – City, like Chicago would be the ideal place for a burgeoning artist to start a career. Owens landed a job with Upshot – an award winning marketing agency boasting HBO, Corona, VISA, and Wild Turkey amongst many others, as their clients. Still, after only a few years Owens found himself missing Atlanta. “I missed the climate, the slower pace of life – the South…” Owens recalls, “and wanting more space to grow as a family, buy a house. It just felt right.” Furthermore, while the retail business prospered in a city laden with foot traffic, Owens wasn’t the only artist trying to make a name for himself in the Windy City. But, then: why Atlanta? “I saw great things starting to happen in Atlanta,” Owens explains, “galleries were starting to pop up here and there and the scene was still budding, whereas in Chicago I was one amongst thousands of others, all trying to do the same damn thing.”

Having kept in touch with his boss at Turner, Owens had no trouble finding a job to return to. Upon his arrival in Atlanta, Owens and his wife settled into a new home in East Atlanta, where he transformed his basement into a working studio-slash-headquarters. Amidst black velvet jesus paintings hang antlers and skulls of varied size and species. A gas mask or two dangle alongside a sizable American flag hanging over a table stacked with older work, prints, and unpainted canvases. An ipod dock murmurs rock music while a mid-80’s television set blinks in and out of static-snow. On easels, in corners, and upon tabletops sit stacks of sorted prints waiting to be sold and shipped, older paintings by Owens, and pieces of screens freckled with the ink-remnants of a day’s work.

Not so much hanging, but covering the wall was Owens’ latest piece, in preparation for the Art Basel showing. The painting is massive – though not his largest (Owens created a mural for Turner Studios that runs some two-hundred feet in length and reaches eighteen feet at its tallest point). The painting here is a woman’s face, pitched back and entranced in what looks like a blend of pain and ecstasy. Her eyes are barren – all white, and the only life about her seems to be the wind-cast locks of red hair flowing about her head. In it’s current state the work has already been through multiple levels and stages of progression – from pencil drawing to vector, and now the amalgam of mediums that stands before us. Stating influences such as skateboard- and street art, Owens’ own work takes on a size and texture not unlike that of alley walls and construction sites, littered with layers of decomposing wheat paste posters and the general urban detritus that collects at said locations. Set on adjoining wooden square panels, the painting breaks into a section of negative space, activated only by the texture of paint, varnish, stain, and a group of skateboards donning Owens’ illustrations. Screened on the far right of the mural are the words: “this could be the end,” in bold, serifed typography. Ironic, considering in many ways this is very much the beginning.

With a painting career spanning more than a decade Owens seems to be finding his voice. More importantly, the painter of zombie-eyed vixens and gun toting belles lends that voice to the still growing chorus of artists in Atlanta, which Owens explains is out there for those willing to seek it: “a lot of people think there’s not much going on here in Atlanta. It definitely seems that way, if you’re not looking.”

For now, Owens is just glad to be doing what he loves, in a city where he feels appreciated. “The fact that people are noticing and buying my work,” Owens grins, “- allowing me to continue doing something I love – it’s really flattering.” And the road doesn’t end in Miami. Aside from the tattoo conventions where Owens can be found selling his skateboards and art prints (all available on his website, www.charlieowens.com), Owens has a couple of group shows lined up (Cannibal Flowers in L.A. with Thinkspace) along with an upcoming solo show in May at Washington DC’s Art Whino gallery – the group that hosted the artist in Miami as part of their TAKEOVER exhibit for this year’s Art Basel.

With artists like Owens moving back to Atlanta to pursue an arts career and events such as the Living Walls mural project – that drew both artists and attention onto our Southeastern metropolis – is there hope for Atlanta to join cities like Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles in the roster of art scene heavy hitters? Well one thing is certain: there is a plethora of galleries, shows, and individuals abound in our city for those willing to find them. From gallery walks in Castleberry Hill to the increasing clout of work featured at our very own HIGH museum, and the more obscure network of artists who make honest (or not-so honest) livings by day and pursue their given-talents and passions by night – there is a wind blowing through our City in the Forest. And while most might flock to the more well known “Art Meccas” for the time being, that only leaves more room to grow for those, like Charlie Owens, who choose to call The A their home.

Photo Credit: Tim Song