Sikelela ‘Ziggy’ Owen in her studio, photo courtesy of the artist
Damaris Athene: Can you tell me a bit about yourself?
Sikelela Owen: Yes, I am an artist, mainly painting, drawing, and printmaking. I was born in London and I moved to the north of England to Cheshire in the middle of my school life. Then I came back down to London for university to study art at Chelsea. I went on to study at the Royal Academy for my Postgraduate degree.
DA: What have you been doing since graduating in 2012?
SO: I have been trying to be an artist. *laughs*
DA: *laughs*
SO: I have been doing a mixture of shows, and a bit of teaching and working in other fields. I had a few solo shows, including one at James Freeman Gallery last year. I was lucky I got into the 100 painters of tomorrow book.
DA: I was looking at that this morning! That's so cool you’re featured in it!
SO: Yeah, no, it was amazing. When you apply for stuff, you hope stuff comes back, more often than not it doesn't. It was a really interesting and nice project to be part of, especially as I’m an art book lover.
DA: Me too! I have to restrain myself. It's quite difficult!
SO: Yeah, fortunately I'm not super rich otherwise we'd be living under a pile of books. *laughs*
DA: *laughs* Could you introduce your practice and explain what your paintings are of and about?
SO: They’re loose figurative paintings of friends and family and other people. They're about an idea of community and intimacy. Sometimes they are literally placing those people into the larger narrative of painting. It's kind of how I process the world to a certain extent. I come from a quite dispersed community, so a lot of the people who are part of these images, their geographies and spaces change.
‘The Thinker’ 2018, Oil on canvas
150cm x 100cm
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: Are you painting from memory or do you take reference photos?
SO: I usually have a source material. However, there are images that I know so well that it's almost redundant.
DA: Like a family photo that you've seen over many years?
SO: Yeah. My mum has a collection of family photos in our hallway and there are a couple of portraits of my grandparents I could probably do from memory. I like having the images begin somewhere real. Wherever they end up, that’s their business. Usually it's photos that I've taken or photos that I know super well. I have worked from other people's imagery before, but there's something very important about the selection process. I don't like the photos to be to posed. I like people to be relaxed. But at the same time with the family archive ones, they tend to be people looking at the camera, trying to look a certain way, whereas the more contemporary ones tend to be people lying on the couch and being snapped by yours truly.
DA: That's interesting, because there’s been a shift to photography being an everyday thing that we're so comfortable with, whereas before, it would have been a special occasion. Your paintings can track that.
SO: Yeah, exactly, like something which you'd get dressed up for. I love being able to capture those moments. I suppose it began when I was younger with those lovely disposable cameras. You don't know what's going to come out of them. And also with photography, how it reacts with black, brown skin. Most of people in my paintings are people of colour. I remember lots of really interesting incidents where we'd be outside in the dark, and there would just be like an eye in the photos. That's a big thing. There’s also a mediation process, usually photo collage, painting on the photos, drawing from them, printmaking from them. But I think as I've done it so much or so I've gotten so used to it now, that process is often not entirely necessary I can just do everything mentally.
DA: Was that originally a way to get further away from a very accurate representation of the photo, to abstract it?
SO: Yeah, I’m not interested in a proper likeness to be honest. I like them to begin somewhere real and to feel and be real. When I first began I used to make literal collages, like I did a painting of my mum as the Queen. Even when I used to visit galleries I was visually putting people into different places. A reason why I really enjoy painting people I know is because I feel like more comes into the painting. I feel I can take more liberties with them and their imagery. My relationship with them comes into it and I feel like more interesting things happen, more interesting conversations between me the person I'm representing, and painting in general. There are so many images of my mum. I don't think she would recognise herself in half of them.
‘The Sunning (Manda and Sike)’ 2021, Oil on canvas
110cm x 180cm
Photo by Rocio Chacon
DA: Is that relationship something that you share with your audience? Or is it a personal thing that you have with your artwork?
SO: I personally do not feel that the audience needs to know that it's someone real. It just needs to feel like there's the level of intimacy there. I think the easiest way to do that is to be honest, to have a level of intimacy and share that with the audience. I'm happy for them to know and at the same, I kind of hope that people see echoes of moments in their life in them. You know, a husband sleeping, annoying brothers swearing at you, a daughter's recital, a wedding, a nice family photo. I hope that the realness echoes through it.
DA: It's interesting there’s that realness but then actually, the figures look very ambiguous, you often can't see their features. Is that a product of the abstraction? Or is that also a conceptual intention?
SO: I think that's just a product of how I work. I try and keep what I think is important. I don't think it being exactly my aunt is necessary for people to understand the work or to be interested in the work. I want people to be able to place, not place themselves into the work, but…
DA: Connect?
SO: Yeah, connect without the barrier of maybe a confrontational gaze, or all these other things.
DA: Personally, that ambiguity is what draws me in and what makes it interesting. As you're saying, it leaves it open for the opportunity to connect. An accurate likeness of someone doesn't leave much space to be about anything else.
SO: I think that's really important. Ultimately I’m presenting a human being. So many things are removed from the original imagery, I probably spend more time removing stuff than putting it in.
‘The Rehearsal’ in Sikelela’s studio
2020, Oil on canvas, 125cm x 100cm
Photo courtesy the artist
DA: You've spoken about the loaded history of painting, have you absorbed a lot of paintings and do you feel that that feeds into the work you make?
SO: I have absorbed a lot of painting, probably more than specifically researching stuff. I used to visit galleries with my dad when I was a kid. We would go at the weekend to the National Gallery or Tate and top it off with a nice McDonalds! Historical paintings are what I used to love as a kid, especially because the size used to make me feel like I was literally in them, being absorbed by them. They had the edge over TV, because you can make up your own narrative. I do think a lot about historical painting. I borrow from some pretty low brow things as much as I borrow from more high brow things. Composition is something I've often struggled with and now I feel happier to just borrow from those people because they got it right the first time!
DA: They did and I'm sure they wouldn't mind! How did you your use of a limited palette develop?
SO: Honestly, I'm not entirely sure. I’ve been working towards the palette of the skin for years and years and I just love the outdoors. I basically eliminated a lot of colour. There's a desire for the figure to be harmonious in this space. I did a picture with a ridiculously bright pink in it, but that made sense because I was in Jamaica, and it felt that bright.
DA: Do you work on multiple canvases at the same time?
SO: Yeah, three seems to be a good number. It stops me from just painting stuff for the sake of it.
DA: It’s so hard knowing when to stop!
SO: Yeah, as Dana Schutz says, you can overcook a painting.
DA: How has the pandemic changed the way that you usually work?
SO: It's been an interesting change for me. In the first lockdown I was pregnant. I was quite paranoid about going into the studio and I was trying to change to less toxic materials, so I didn't really work that much. I had a number of things going on anyway, I had gestational diabetes and carpal tunnel amongst other things.
‘Kaiden’ 2020, Oil on canvas
45.7cm x 35.6cm
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: Do you feel that that's starting to shift for you now?
SO: Oh, yes, totally. After giving birth it has been much more positive. Being able to slow down has been amazing, you’ve just had a child and you still want to do your thing but you also don't want to have to feel like you should be rushing and going to private views and trying to be seen. In fact, I've had some opportunities which have come out of the pandemic, such as online shows with Gillian Jason gallery and the Grove Collective. I was lucky I got a Freelands Foundation a-n magazine grant, which has been really amazing for me to feel secure and know that I could keep practicing. Without it I probably would have had to get rid of my studio because I had the baby.
DA: Congratulations, that’s awesome! In your statement in ‘100 Painters of Tomorrow’ you say how private narratives can be personal and political at the same time. I thought that was really interesting and made me think of the slogan used in 1960s second wave feminism - the personal is political.
SO: Yeah, I would agree that the personal is political. In part that’s why I prefer to work from the real. One of the things that I like about art is that people get to tell their own stories and have agency rather than groups co-opting the general narrative. I often paint people of colour and there's a lot of politics about moving in spaces as a human being in general, but as woman of colour and a member of the African diaspora there are a lot of things that are just part of everyday life. One of the projects that I did was based on an image that I saw on Instagram. I thought it was just a beautiful photograph and then I found out it was this young man who had killed himself after being jailed unfairly for three years in the US for allegedly stealing a backpack and he had never actually been sentenced. He was jailed from 16 to 19 and his name was Khalif. I feel like a lot of the ways that we receive imagery are not very satisfying. An image like that shouldn't have the same weight as a picture of my breakfast on Instagram. It's really necessary for people to have time to absorb an image and for people to sit with things. Like you said, the personal is political. I portray my husband a lot, he’s a 6’ 2” black man, and what that represents for a lot of people isn't this soft person who falls asleep with our baby in his hands. Levels of tenderness, intimacy, and vulnerability combined with masculinity isn’t necessarily something that people see regularly. With the protests last year, I thought - I'm gonna stay in bed and sleep, I'm pregnant. It was quite full on. Now I have a young son and my husband’s family lives in New Jersey.
DA: So it's very present in your consciousness?
SO: Yeah, very present. When we went to go visit his family, he changed the way he dressed from business suits to tracky bottoms and a hoodie. I was like, we are not going into the middle of Manhattan with your hood up, take it down. We're gunna end up on the news! The personal is difficult to untangle from everything else. My gaze definitely changes with what I'm interested in. I'm representing a lot of women at the moment and a lot who have children. Pregnant women came up in my work, before I got pregnant.
‘David (as Olympia)’ 2016, Oil on canvas
160cm x 200cm
Photo courtesy of the artist
DA: A premonition?
SO: Yeah, I mean we were thinking about it. Then I started reflecting on images of my mum when she was pregnant. I was also reflecting on the loss of family during the years before and maybe losing a connection to where my mum's from, Zimbabwe. It was the loss of them, but also a loss of histories because it's a mainly oral tradition. So it's impossible to untangle from the political for me. What of those kind of things would I be passing onto a child? How important would it be and would it be help or hindrance? I'm one of the few people in my generation who can speak Ndebele, my mom's native tongue.
DA: Are you going to teach your son?
SO: I'm going to attempt to because the truth is I don't speak it as much as I should.
DA: I hope it works out! Whose work inspires you?
SO: Oh, so lots of dead people. But as for living artists, I really enjoy Kerry James Marshall's work. One of the ladies that I was on residency with in Rome, Tal Regev, I really enjoy her work, and Chantal Joffe. I often admire a lot of photographers like Zanele Mtholo. Also I find loads of London based artists really interesting. It's nice, I'm part of the Contemporary British Painters.
DA: Oh yeah, I saw you being introduced on their newsletter the other day!
SO: It's amazingly interesting timing, when I’ve got a 6 month year old! I think there's a renewed interest in figurative painting and I'm lucky to be a part of that right now. But yeah, I like the work of so many people and it ends up being a very noisy space in my head in the studio, and then these quite muted paintings come out.
DA: It’s interesting how your personal life feeds into your work as well as that. It’s your subconscious coming out!
SO: Yeah! When I went to Rome, I was thinking about memorials and I made a painting of my uncle who has passed away. It had a very Caravaggio style composition going on. So it’s this weird combination of a lot of things. I've been thinking about loss a lot, also in the wider world. In my lifetime I don't remember not being part of the EU or Robert Mugabe not being in charge of Zimbabwe. I don't tend to do politics with a big P, because it's not really my thing. I don't know how much I can add to that, because I feel like there are really great protests. I feel like all I can do is describe a space, invite people in and describe these human beings.
‘Knitting’ 2018, Oil on canvas
183cm x 152cm
Photo courtesy the artist.
DA: But that can be more powerful because it can slip in without people realising. Whereas if it's in your face, then people could have a strong reaction and not engage at all.
SO: Yeah, I suppose so, and also being a human being navigating the world is political.
DA: Very true! You’ve mentioned some of the projects that you've been working on recently, is there anything else coming up?
SO: At the moment I'm working on a limited edition print for Hospital Rooms and I have a couple of shows coming up at the end of the year.
DA: Oh, nice.
SO: I don't think I've ever been this busy in my whole life!
DA: Wow. Plus a baby and a pandemic!! Are you managing to juggle everything? Is your head not exploding?
SO: Oh yeah, last month, when I was doing all those shows. But in general, I think I'm quite confident we can work at our own pace because most of these things are at the end of the year.. I'm really lucky because my husband is at home so he can sub in quite easily and Eli is quite compliant. I've got a solo show at James Freeman, and one at Taymour Grahne Projects coming up, and a group show with the Contemporary British Painters.
SO: This year is going to be a balancing act of being part of stuff, but also just being able to take time away for family. Some artists mothers I was speaking to just took two or three years off.
DA: Wow that's gonna have a huge effect on their career. A whole three years off?
SO: Yeah…
DA: What age can he go to nursery?
SO: Maybe in a year? One of the things that came up in the report about women artists is that you're paying for daycare and you're making work in the studio, but studio work doesn't necessarily work out to be paid work.
DA: That must be such a difficult thing to manage. Good luck trying to strike a balance! Well, thank you so much.
SO: Thank you.
