Laura Owens

amfAR Award of Excellence for Artistic Contributions to the Fight Against AIDS

Artist Laura Owens was born in 1970 in Euclid, Ohio. She earned a BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design, Providence, and an MFA from the California Institute for the Arts, Valencia.

Solo shows include a mid-career retrospective at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2003), and at the Kunstmuseum Bonn, Germany (2011–12); Art Unlimited, Basel (2012); and 356 S. Mission Road, Los Angeles (2013). Group shows include The Spectacular of Vernacular, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011); Yes, No, Maybe: Artist Working at Crown Point Press, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. (2013–14); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Whitney Biennial (2014); and The Forever Now: Contemporary Painting in an Atemporal World, Museum of Modern Art, New York (2014–15). She was a finalist for the 2016 Hugo Boss Prize, which is administered by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation and, according to the museum’s website, “honors outstanding achievement in contemporary art, celebrating the work of remarkable artists whose practices are among the most innovative and influential of our time.”

Her engaging work ranges from Rousseau-like landscapes to multi-layered Photoshop compositions. She currently lives and works in Los Angeles.