Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Owen.
Hi Tom, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
I am a fine art painter and have been making art all of my life. I was born and raised in Fairfield, OH at a time when the city seemed only a crossroads between cornfields. Growing up I had an endless supply of paper, pencils, and paints always at the ready on a small card table in the corner of the living room. In high school, I took over part of the family garage as my studio. My father could build anything and my mother was a talented seamstress—both “makers” in the truest sense. From them I learned that if you make a mistake or if something doesn’t work, then you learn from it and keep trying. A great life lesson! My high school art teacher called it ‘the discipline of accident’ and it is a core tenet of my practice still today. I attended college in Cincinnati and worked most of my adult life in and around the Greater Cincinnati region. Armed with a degree in English literature (that’s another story), I worked as a high school teacher, and then in corporate education first for a pharmaceutical research company and then for over 21 years as a corporate learning and development executive for a Fortune 500 company. I frequently travelled in my job, so I would visit galleries, meet other artists, and learn as much as I could about the “art world” and the art business. I’ve been painting and exhibiting for over twenty years in several Ohio cities: Cincinnati, Dayton, Mason, and other US cities including New York, Miami, Santa Fe, Richmond, Milwaukee, Key West, and in the San Francisco Bay Area. Along the way I also earned an MA in psychology and credentials as a hypnotherapist. I left the 8-5 job in the autumn of 2021 to paint full-time. My current art studio is located in Newport, KY, less than 2 miles from downtown Cincinnati so I work closely with many Cincinnati-based art collectors, art consultants and designers on commissions for residential and commercial projects across the US. My work has been featured in several publications (print and online) and is in both private and corporate collections across the United States and Europe.
We all face challenges, but looking back would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Like many, the obstacles or struggles I’ve face have been often self-imposed: “I can’t do x or y because I don’t have an art degree.” That’s really the imposter syndrome at play. One has to work through that. When I was traveling for my corporate job, finding the time to paint was tough. On some business trips I would take along a paint kit and some small canvases so I could paint in my hotel room at night. Artist Nicholas Wilton once said that “frequency is more important than duration.” Whether I’m in my studio for 30 minutes or 3 hours, I have to show up and do the work; as Picasso said, “Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” And there are the more mundane challenges too, like building a social media following, creating and maintaining a website, etc. I’m a believer in playing to one’s strengths. I outsource to experts what I need to; in the early days if I didn’t have the cash on hand then I’d offer to trade art for services. The reality is that most people want to see people they know and like, succeed.
Alright, so let’s switch gears a bit and talk business. What should we know about your work?
As a fine art painter I am most interested in how we see and experience color. My work is an exploration of color, light, and perception, and how color transitions and intensities when it is manipulated to create a deeper emotional and visual experience. My work tends to feature bold, geometric shapes and often bright colors that fill the entire canvas or panel, inviting the viewer to engage with the subtle interplay between hues. I use vinyl flashe emulsion, a highly pigmented, water-based permanent paint, applied in multiple transparent layers, creating a rich depth of color that shifts depending on the light. I often use squeegees and other straight edges to paint these thin transparent layers resulting in subtle shifts in tone and visual texture.
While I draw inspiration from urban environments, this thoughtful manipulation of color doesn’t just create a visual impact—it offers a more immersive experience, urging viewers to look closely and reflect on the ways in which they perceive their environment. It is my distinctive use of color and light that sets my work apart, offering a fresh take on the intersection of minimalism and bold visual expression. There is a warmth and balance that really draws one in.
What matters most to you? Why?
Art has the power to alter perspectives in ways that mere facts do not. Facts persuade the head, beauty moves the heart. My paintings invite contemplation, encouraging a deeper connection with the colors that shape the spaces we inhabit. With every layer, my work transforms, revealing new aspects of perception with each glance, making my paintings not just objects of observation, but gateways to a more profound experience of the world around us. I believe it was Robert Penn Warren who wrote that “Art is the process by which we understand our relationship to one another.” We can tend to think of art as a luxury, but art gives people deep pleasure because the beauty they experience is the personification of hope that there is something grander is at work. So in a sense, art enables one to experience becoming, to better understand oneself (and each other), and the hope necessary to make a better world…and that is what matters.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.tomowenfineart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tomowen_artist
