Owen Tucker

Owen Tucker
Anchorage, Alaska, USA

STATEMENT

My practice is an ongoing process of beginning. In the past, I made marks. I labored over details in my attempts to create accurate representations of things. But, despite some notable success, something felt off, until I did something that seemed both necessary and drastic at the time: I swapped my pencil for a sharp knife.

Now I perform surgery. I splice and graft, destroy and rebuild. I am not, in fact, limited to a knife, but I view the enterprise of making art less rigidly, more generously, more joyously. Though I mostly work with paper right now, almost anything is a potential material. There is so much already out there, ready to be repurposed, rearranged, or renewed. My studio is full of things I have saved from the landfill: old magazines, candy wrappers, gravel bags, broken tools, copper fittings, tile spacers, Styrofoam, fabric scraps, my own old drawings. To each item, I ask: what else can you be? Someday, I am sure, they will answer.

BIO

Owen Tucker is an artist in Anchorage, Alaska. His collages and other works reduce found material (old books, shiny garbage, his own drawings) to simple shapes, colors, and textures that can be rearranged into something wholly new. His work displays a high level of precision contrasted with a more intuitive, handmade quality.

ARTIST CONTACT

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owntckr.com

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