Uba Owl | Joanna Salska
Biography
Uba Owl is a founding member of a new interdisciplinary art movement, Alterrealism. Passionate about political and social issues, she often touches these subjects in her art. Uba Owl's paintings' remarkable achievement, realized through her talent with color and line, is the creation of a sustained emotional effect despite multiple narrative tensions. There is a sense of quiet power, of emergence and beginnings, of wisdom against an anticipated struggle. This is a bold departure from much male-dominated Western art, which often chooses a concrete narrative image while creating sub-surface ambiguities of emotion. It is a painting of intuition itself, succeeding in the far more difficult and demanding task of capturing a way of feeling.
Uba Owl was one of 14 US artists chosen for the 4th Beijing International Art Biennale, 2010, taking place at the Beijing National Art Museum. She has exhibited widely in galleries and museums and throughout US, Europe and Asia.
Artist Statement
"Many of the paintings I do are remembrance of dream state experiences. A world, while in it, that feels as real and vital as this one. There, we are able to soar, or move invisibly, even breath underwater. There, we can go into the future or return to the past. We can converse with our ancestors, we can see our children grown. We can take risks we'd never undertake here. We see objects and creatures that make no sense physically and although they are uncommon, they are also familiar.
There are in some parts of the universe, colors unknown and winds so forceful you lie glued to the ground. This place is remote, still I go there every night and I know that you probably do too. I've never met a person who doesn't dream. With the paintings I am attempting to depict the essence of the events encountered that I can recall upon waking. It is an exercise that inserts me into another state, neither fully here nor there. There are three separate worlds for my senses. I feel fortunate to travel through life this way."
About Alterrealism
"Alterrealism is a cultural movement that had evolved from the introspective visions of the Surrealists of the early 20th century. While the Surrealists expressed the inner workings of the subconscious mind through fantasy imagery and incongruous juxtaposition of subject matter, the Alterrealists' vision is the fluid connection between the subconscious and conscious worlds - thus one enhancing the other. The playful dramas of the subconscious mind often bring about a healing process as one contemplates and then solves complex problems and issues through their dreams. With the advent of the computer and the Internet Alterrealism took on new meanings as the sense of time, space and being transforms and alters through the interactions with the vast consciousness we call the internet. Today Alterrealism is expressed in a variety of mediums from paintings, sculptures, to the digital multimedia arts, urban enviro-expressionism, and other experiential creative endeavors."
Exhibitions
Joanna Salska
Curious in Time I Stand
May 3rd – 31st, 2019
Joanna Salska
Recent Paintings
June 3rd – 25th, 2016
Joanna Salska
Paintings 2009-2012, Book Release
October 5th – 27th, 2012
Uba Owl
AlterRealism:
The paintings of Uba Owl
September 2nd – 30th, 2011
Uba Owl
AlterRealism:
The paintings of Uba Owl
April 2nd – 30th, 2010
Selected Works - Joanna Salska
TITLE 0085, mixed media, 12 x 17
Selected Works - Uba Owl
