The exhibition includes watercolour and acrylic paintings created between 2016 and 2021. Born in a musical family in Liège, Belgium in 1987, Owen  pursued his art studies in England where he obtained his BA (Honours) in Fine Art in 2011 from Winchester School of Art, Southampton University. In 2018 Owen and his family settled in Edmundston, NB.

“During my university studies, the professor suggested to us that we should seek inspiration from our homes, our family backgrounds and our surroundings. Coming from a musical family it was thus quite normal that I should look to music, especially to the sculptural forms of wood and brass instruments and their intricate mechanisms. My first years of painting were thus spent researching and gradually creating an enigmatic musical world with biomorphic forms of musical instruments [blended] with human elements [to create] a universe of extremely rich and varied forms which are organic and alive.”

Featured in the most recent edition of Created Here Magazine, Munisamy explores a form of abstraction that blends biological, suggestively human elements (which might remind you of the sculptures of British artists Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth) with the geometrical, hard-edged shapes of contemporary technology. In vivid and bold colour, Munisamy creates variations on a theme of collapsing and exploding spheres suspended on illusory planes, within expansive atmospheres and accompanied with surprising allusions to both art and the real world. At any point the artist’s imagery can transport us to the microscopic or to outer space. Another influence on the artist was Salvador Dali and if you can remember his famous melting clock, you are well on your way to envisioning Munisamy’s biomorphic inventions. Tree trunks, bicycle wheels, telescopes, lines, wedges, and the unexpected biological form can all be discovered in these enigmatic paintings
Owen’s diverse interests and influences include cartooning, Metaphysical and Surrealist painting. Bold colour contrasts, strong diagonals and areas of complexity contrasting with passages of delicate colour and light result in images that fuse technology with the human form.

“Likewise I have always been attracted to strip cartoons by the artists Enki Bilal (for his sombre atmospheres), Jean Giraud / Moebius (for his imagination and details) and Phillippe Druillet (for his dark backgrounds and very contrasting colours). Aldo Pomodoro and Anish Kapoor also inspired me, the first by his spheres with a complexity of details reflecting another world, the second by his voids that pull the viewer towards the interior. As de Chirico says: “Even that dreams are an inexplicable mystery but even more mysterious are the thoughts that converge to certain objects and aspects of life.

In parallel with my oil paintings I use watercolours. I employed that technique to start with as a means of research for my oil paintings. My watercolours are a long search from complex structures to now more delicate and sensitive paintings. My works are progressively becoming more architectural with fewer musical details. I am always engaged in creative research, always going forward, always evolving ….”