Hilary Owers

Studio Holder

Owers trained in printmaking and photomedia at Central Saint Martin's College of Art and Design in London. During and since the completion of her MA Fine Art at the University of East London in 2001, she has been based at Cuckoo Farm Studios, Colchester, Essex. Since graduating her work has been exhibited regularly in the U.K. Drawing is central to her current art practice.

My studio is in the old farmhouse at Cuckoo Farm Studios, where I have worked for over 20 years.  

Drawing has always been the main focus of my work. For many years I used charcoal as a single drawing medium, producing large scale representational drawings or smaller detailed studies of natural forms and found objects. Recently I have been making what I refer to as my ‘Allotment Brushes' from the collection of sticks and feathers and other natural objects brought into the studio, not now as objects to draw from, but reinvented as tools to draw with.

Ongoing experiments have added a certain drama to my work through the addition of inks and paint, and drips and scrapes. As the marks add one to another, I constantly turn the paper, disrupting progress, allowing new and exciting possibilities to emerge. I have discovered over time, that by allowing drawings to evolve organically as a response to the flow of the medium or the marks of the tools, an unexpected and more abstract pathway unfolds.