Forward by Professor Catherine Wilson

Beyond Boundaries

It seems the most omnipresent characteristic of our contemporary global world is that it is in a constant state of flux and metamorphosis. The nature of culture is now hybrid, and it is maybe the biomorphic that most adequately expresses the true shape of what we see and experience when we engage with a world of continually changing boundaries: cultural, political or geographic.  This is particularly relevant for artists whose lives and histories have crossed cultural and geographic boundaries. 

To describe the art of Owanto, for example, as Abstract Expressionist, even Neo-Expressionist or to align it obliquely with the western idea of the ‘avant-garde’ is to deny the breadth and complexity of her work. For beyond the surface is a dynamic, rich interplay between forms and signifiers from both western and non-western cultures.  As an international artist working within a cross-cultural milieu, Owanto has a stronger affinity to the notion of a ‘trans-cultural avant-garde’ and with artists who express their personal and universal concerns today from a position that embraces different cultural perspectives. 

Owanto has been painting for more than 20 years, and her inspiration has always been the profound experiences of her life and her own deep questions about life and its meaning.  However, it is in her recent work over the last two years that her existential concerns have combined with a surge of creative energy to produce not only paintings of considerable enigmatic and life affirming force, but also a further significant development in her œuvre. 

The totems assert an indelible presence and aura, they stand with a sentinel-like stature, their pronounced verticality suggesting entities, organic or inorganic, that bridge the earthly and spiritual worlds. 

In addition to two dimensional canvases, the artist has embarked on a new series of ‘Totems’ – painted canvases wrapped around frames to create freestanding vertical forms. Whether in the studio or the gallery, the Totems assert an indelible presence and aura, almost shamanistic. They stand with a sentinel-like stature, their pronounced verticality suggesting entities, organic or inorganic, that bridge the earthly and spiritual worlds. The painted surfaces, thick with the energy of impasto, radiate a further palpable sense of an inner emotional journey. In the totems we can perceive an even greater presence of the powerful dualities that are a feature of Owanto’s paintings: light/dark, life/death, energy/stasis, surface/depth and the earthly/spiritual.
 
There is the undoubted influence of Kandinsky, American Abstract Expressionism and European Modernism in her preoccupation with pure expression through colour and development of an abstract language. However, equally important is the reference to non-western, in particular, African art and sculpture, and the artist’s exploration of Hindu/Eastern philosophies about colour and consciousness. The artist’s own cross-cultural background includes French, Gabonese and Indochinese ancestry.

For Owanto, in particular, dissolving boundaries between media, forms, space and cultural signifiers is also a path to seducing and engaging the viewer with a creative spirit, at once both internal and questioning, as well as outwardly celebratory of life.
It is a concern for the balance between these inner and outer realms of human life as well as an unalterable need to remain in touch with The Absolute, which motivates this artist.  And it is equally her perception of a ‘loss’ in human and spiritual values in aspects of the contemporary globalised world that compels her to communicate these concerns to others.

In naming the Totems the ‘Great Connectors’, Owanto is alluding to her personal philosophy that “We come from the Unknown, and we go back to the Unknown,
but in between we try to accomplish a meaningful journey.” 

Catherine Wilson, April 2005