Seka Owen
Seka Owen (b. 1931) - Artist Biography
Seka Owen (RCA, ASA) was born in 1931 in Zagreb, Croatia (formerly Yugoslavia). She attended the Academy of Music and studied Microbiology at the University of Zagreb. She immigrated to Canada in 1955 and began pursuing her passion for fashion and interior design at the University of Alberta in Edmonton and at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
After her graduation from the Fine Art program at the University of Alberta in 1977, Seka Owen had embarked on an intensive program of self-directed art study. This included three sessions at the summer Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops at Emma Lake, Saskatchewan. There she worked under the tutelage of a handful of important established artists and critics, including painters Toni Onley, Darryl Hughto, Douglas Haynes, Stanley Boxer and Kenneth Noland, and critics Sidney Tillim and Kenworth Moffett. A trip to New York in 1983 was a landmark experience in that it allowed her easy access to the city’s major museums, where she could see at leisure major examples of historical art. Working in a loaned studio she was able to see challenging contemporary art as well by making frequent visits to the work spaces of some of the artists that she had grown to admire in her quest to develop her own voice.
The paintings that Seka produced subsequent to her New York sojourn were impressive, featuring vigorous fields of loose brushwork laid over softly nuanced colour grounds and, seemed to corral all Seka’s natural strengths as a painter. Seen in the context of her later development, the paintings of that period were only an early example of numerous compositional strategies that Seka would work through over the following years. To think that she is still painting and exploring four decades later is remarkable and, in a way, inspiring.
Abstract art is difficult to do. All art is, for that matter, but abstraction presents special challenges. To make an abstract painting, the artist must invent and wrestle with a compositional layout, in effect an “image,” for each new painting that has no visual equivalent in the natural world. Artists must evolve ways of arranging the design or paint application that can be repeated from work to work in order to build on successes and allow scope for further development. Repetition, however, can lead to boredom or staleness, and many artists tire of the effort of conjuring creative renewal. Or simply run out of ideas. The lucky few can maintain the effort over a lifetime. Seka Owen stands in that latter category. She continues to sustain her enthusiasm for the toil, effort and confusion—and occasional surprising successes—of a life of making art.
The fortunate outcome of Seka Owen’s long struggle is apparent in the attention that her art has received. She has exhibited widely across Canada and internationally, and her work is represented in numerous public and private Canadian collections.
In 2006, Seka was inducted into the Royal Canadian Academy of Arts (RCA), being recognized for her artistic achievement and contribution to Canadian Art.
—Russell Bingham, 2019
Former Associate Curator of Contemporary Art, Edmonton Art Gallery
"To paint a picture is an exploratory extension of my own observations and interest in the world. In other words, it is the interpretation of my inner world which my senses have transmitted to me and my subconscious has retained" - Seka Owen
Public Collections:
Calgary Allied Arts Foundation - Calgary, AB
Imperial Oil - Calgary, AB
Yugoslavian Academy of Art and Science - Zagreb, Croatia
The Alberta Arts Foundation - Edmonton, AB
General Assembly - Ottawa, ON
University of Alberta - Edmonton, AB
Richmond Art Gallery - Richmond, BC
Provincial Government - Edmonton, AB
Servus - Edmonton, AB
Federal Government, Department of External Affairs - Ottawa, ON
Art Gallery of Alberta - Edmonton, AB
Osaka Gas Engineering Co - Osaka, Japan
Miloni Trading & Marketing Ltd - Vancouver, BC
Petris Importers Ltd - Vancouver, BC
Evitco - Edmonton, AB
Capital City Savings - Edmonton, AB
Selected Exhibitions:
2015 - Collector's Gallery of Art, Calgary, AB
2014 - Artpoint Gallery, Calgary, AB
2013 - Roberto Ostberg Gallery, Calgary, AB
2011- Visual Arts Alberta Association, Edmonton, AB
2011 - Axis Contemporary Art Gallery, Calgary, AB
2006-9 - AFA Travelling Exhibition, Alberta, Canada
1993 - British Columbia House, London, UK
1993 - Connexion Art Centre, Fredericton, NB
1992 - Buschlen-Mowatt Gallery, Vancouver, BC
2010 - Triangle Gallery of Visual Arts, Calgary, AB
1990 - Richmond Art Gallery, Richmond, BC
1989 - Wade Gallery, Los Angeles, US
1989 - Shayne Gallery, Montreal, QC
