Owens has had meteoric success since graduating from CalArts in the mid-nineties, and this spring her solo show at the Museum of Contemporary Art opened in Los Angeles—a mid-career survey that seems all the more impressive for the fact that the artist is only thirty-two years old. One criticism that has been leveled at Owens is that there is too much of a feel-good quality in the work, which would be a problem if her paintings were maudlin or shallow or overly cute, but they are not. . .
THE BELIEVER: I’m curious about your depictions of bats. Are they just fun to put in paintings, or is there some deeper personal interest on your part?
LAURA OWENS: Recently someone accused me of having only the benevolent in my work, and I think the bats were my attempt at a certain point to bring in less benevolent imagery. But bats have a lot of different meanings depending on which culture you’re talking about, meaning they’re not always seen as bad. In China, you’ll see them in embroidery, and they aren’t the menacing-looking type of black bat. I think they signify good luck. But then there’s a Tiepolo painting at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena, about the triumph of virtue and nobility over ignorance, and I think ignorance is signified by bats…
moe from The Believer here.