Joyce Owens is an artist who considers herself a painter, first, and produces sculpture using found and acquired materials, does works on paper, and has been an independent curator at many venues including colleges, universities, art centers and more. A recent exhibition she curated in Chicago in 2017 was called, "Dreaming Bigger in Strange Times" and included 17 culturally and ethnically diverse women artists for Woman Made Gallery. Owens earned a B.F.A. Owens was a tenured professor in Drawing and Painting and the curator of the galleries at Chicago State University starting as an adjunct in 1996, tenure-track in 2006, she earned the level of Associate Professor leaving in 2015 to spend more time on her art.
Exhibition highlights: a solo exhibition in Oakland, California at Joyce Gordon Gallery in February and March, 2018. Her art has been selected for invitational group exhibitions on four continents through A.I.E. and other opportunities: North America, Europe, South America and Africa in the Swedish Embassy in Stockholm, NATO Headquarters in Brussels, She was selected for an exhibition at The Illinois State Museum, Chicago; The African Union in Addis Ababa; The University of Pennsylvania Museum, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, The DuSable Museum of African American History, Chicago; the Koehnline Museum, IL; The Irish Heritage Center and Columbia College’s Book and Paper Center. Additional exhibitions include the Madd Art Gallery in St. Louis, Missouri; Butridge Gallery, Austin, Texas and the Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, Pennsylvania. I have been represented at the National Black Fine Arts show in New York by ArtJaz Gallery, Philadelphia, Parish Gallery, D.C. and Nicole Gallery; shown in group exhibitions at The Spertus Museum, Chicago; South Shore Arts, Indiana; The University of Alabama, Connecticut College (curated by Barkley Hendricks) and Woman Made Gallery, Illinois, winning various prizes awarded by Martin Puryear, Madeline Rabb, Margaret Hawkins and Faith Ringgold. Owens exhibited in a two-person exhibition at the Museum of Greater Lafayette in Indiana with artist Preston Jackson. She is a Ragdale Fellow.
Collections: Some public and private collections that own her paintings are: The Blackstone Hotel, Chicago; The Paul R. Jones Collection at the University of Alabama: Daniel T. Parker, Patric McCoy, co-founders of Diasporal Rhythms Collectors; Lisa McDonald, Dr. Robert Derden, Ed Gordon, Madeline Rabb, Les Payne, Dr. Lucius Earles, D.E. Simmons, Mt. Sinai Hospital clinic, Chicago; Oakton Community College/Koehnline Museum collection; Columbia College Chicago Book and Paper Center, and Lois Weisberg, former Commissioner of the Department of Cultural Affairs, Chicago, Ra Joy, former director of Arts Alliance Illinois, among others across the country.