Growing up in a manufacturing town, multi-media artist Lolly Owens creates work that is an ongoing exploration of the interrelationships that exist between the mirage of abundance and the reality of depletion. Through painting, drawing, photography and assemblage, Owens combined-media creations, which she calls admixes, focus on the ever-changing natural environment and the abuses inherent with human contact.

 

Steel making, coal mining, carbon capture and fracking allow people to make good wages, feed their families and pay for their educations. It also fouls the air, releasing toxic levels of benzene and other pollutants linked to significant premature deaths. They contaminate both the Monongahela and Allegheny rivers, marring water for plants, animals and humans.

 

Living in rural Washington County, PA, Owens is aware of well-documented instances of poisoned well water and soil that no longer supports life. These occurrences are the underpinning of the artist’s interests, which include protecting the environment, sharing the secret lives of trees and motivating young people to become more awareof their kinship to nature and how they influence and depend on each other.

 

Owens also investigates locations that still hold the beauty and charm of the natural world as well as destruction of air quality and plant life from steam, flaring and smoke emissions that come from manufacturing sites. Her process includes long walks in the western Pennsylvania woods or driving to processing plants for sketches and photos. Upon returning to her studio, she meditates, determining the creative direction that would best define her experience. She often revamps material found on her walks, such as dried leaves, bark, wire, feathers and eggshells, to create works like Tree Eulogy, honoring the struggle of trees.

 

Owens’ admixes and paintings offer a view of the world that is both grounded and transcendental, combining the past and the present for a brighter future. In the spirit of Rachel Carson’s words: “There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of Nature – the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after winter.”

 

As a graduate of Chatham College, Owens first heard of alumna Rachel Carson (1907-1964). Her work is credited with launching the modern environmental movement. After reading Carson’s book Silent Spring, Owens developed a series of mixed-media paintings inspired by Carson's life and work and began to use more earth tones, texture and written messages.

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Owens artwork has been exhibited both nationally and internationally, including the St. Alberts Gallery (St. Alberts, Canada), the Coral Springs Museum of Art (Coral Springs Florida) and the Pittsburgh Botanic Garden (Oakdale, PA.) Owens currently lives and maintains a studio in Canonsburg, PA.