Lee James Owens
Without You 
19.01.22 – 05.02.22

Design & The Arts have been employed heavily through advertising & the media to influence the way we see the world, ourselves, think & feel. Entire belief systems have been created using these techniques for decades. The explosion of the advertising industry & western pop culture in the 50s & 60s fuled consumerism throughout the years to follow. Simultaneously seeding & feeding off ideas of individuality, insecurity, envy, greed & lust to sell products, services & seed ideals across the world.

Lee James Owens uses fundamental elements of design, communication & modernism through; Colour, Type, Grid, Scale, Hierarchy & Shape to question its role. Inspired by the work of Richard Prince, Barbra Kruger & The Pictures Generation, imagery is stolen, edited & removed from its original context to have its meaning re-evaluated. He re-focuses the viewer on a new way of seeing once familiar, even mundane imagery from the past, giving it entirely new meaning. Printed images & type are simply cropped, combined & composed in new ways to throw their original purpose & message into question. Basic graphic shapes & blocks of flat painted acrylic colour are layered on to emphasise ideas & focus the viewer’s attention. 

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