I’m a mixed media artist and writer working across collage, painting, and text, with occasional ventures into digital reconstruction. Found materials, vintage ephemera, childhood drawings, and studio debris collaborate with acrylic, ink, oil stick, photography, and discarded fabrics. The work manifests in series and collections, each “family” a sort of visual chapbook. The work is fueled by chance operations, happy accidents, and spontaneous composing. A longtime professor of writing studies, I bring a research cadence to the studio: field notes, poetry, and fiction accompany much of the art.
Themes and preoccupations that feed the work include: portals, kitschy paranormal poetics, clairvoyance, exoplanets, the music of the spheres, hollow earth, hauntology, solastalgia, the anthropocene.
I teach at St. John's University, NY; before that I taught at Harvard University. My academic interests include arts-based research; experimental writing; and sustainability as a pedagogical ethic. MA and Doctor of Arts from University at Albany; MFA from Transart Institute/Plymouth University.
I live on Long Island, New York.
contact@derekowens.net
Selected Exhibitions
"Nine-Box Grids," Art League of Long Island, August-September 2025.
“aeolian harps”, Labocine, August 2025 issue.
“Our Rabbits Whisper Their Escape,” Digital Art, Assemblage and Collage exhibit, Limner Gallery, Hudson NY, June 19-July 12, 2025.
Digital art on exhibit at Future Fest, Orillia Opera House Eco-Art Exhibit, “Your World Soon”, Sept 26, 2024, Ontario.
“One Is Underwater in the Heart of the Wood.” Mixed Media , Part Crowd Gallery, Toronto, July 1 - August 31 2024.
“Corona,” “Tree Sprites, Greenlawn, Dusk.” Art League of Long Island, August-September 2024.
“Presidential Portrait, #45” Benefit for Harris/Walz, Gallery Gaia, Brooklyn, NY, August 3 - August 31, 2024.
“The Essentialists,” 3rd Annual Member & Guest Group Show, Pictor Gallery, Manhattan, NY - November 28 - December 23, 2023.
“the real, honest goodness,” Small Works Exhibit. Jag Gallery. Key West, FL. November 3 - November 26 2023.
Beyond Earth. Ten Moir Gallery. Kansas City, MO. September 2023.
Art and Poetic Text. Cultural Center of Cape Cod. South Yarmouth, MA. April 11-29, 2023.
"One Need Not Be a Chamber," Down on Paper. Vestige Concept Gallery. Pittsburgh, PA. February 18 - March 19, 2023.
"Hain't," New Data--New Dada. Stone Valley Arts. Poultney, VT. September 16 - October 23, 2022.
After the End of the End of the World. Regier Gallery, Bethel College. North Newton, KS. February - March 2021.
"Voyager Postscripts", Creative Climate Awards/Human Impacts Institute. Manhattan. Nov 6 - Dec 4, 2019.
Collage. Site: Brooklyn Gallery. Brooklyn. June 14 - July 13, 2019.