Ruth Owens

I am a figurative painter and video artist exploring the intersections of Black life and ecology. My work begins with a feeling of dislocation: I am both of the wild world and estranged from it—a world increasingly shaped by extractive systems, comfort, and control.
I seek a renewed relationship with nature grounded in mutual respect and an openness to its treacherous beauty. Across painting and time-based media, I consider Black femme engagements with flora, fauna, and geological forms, and build “optimistic imaginaries” that recognize our ecological disconnection while reaching beyond it.
Drawing on the deep feeling of Audre Lorde’s “Uses of the Erotic: The Erotic as Power,” my work explores collaboration, congregation, and conviviality within our entanglement with the natural world. Through these encounters, I imagine reconciliation as an embodied, collective practice

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Ruth Owens is a figurative painter and video artist represented by the Ferrara Showman Gallery. Foundationally, her practice lies in the relationships between humans and nature. Exhibitions include the Prospect.6 Triennial (2024), and a solo show at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art. Artist residencies include the Joan Mitchell Center, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Studios at MASS MoCA, NARS, and the International Studio and Curatorial Program (ISCP) in NY. Her work is in the permanent collections of the 21c Museums, Ackland Art Museum at UNC-Chapel Hill, the Addison Gallery of American Art, the Dale Center for the Study of War and Society, Beth Rudin DeWoody, Fidelity Investments Corporate Collection, and the Ogden Museum of Southern Art.

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