Owen Speir
(they/he)
Owen’s work is concerned with how transness destabilises both time and materials in a way that releases them. They work primarily in processes that require repetitive and cyclical work, and include casting, hand papermaking, screenprinting, and analogue audio. They also work with writing, and have recently been incorporating found text into their sculptural and sound works.
Illegible Body
the materials used to develop this body of work include plaster of paris, fine casting plaster, herculite, crystacast, jesmonite, hemp rope, clear soap, pink oil stick, graphite powder, second-hand cassette tapes and cassette tape cases, hand pulled cotton paper, screenprinted j-cards, distorted found analogue audio of a production of Hamlet, sampled home recordings of teenage singing lessons, a broken e-reader, and manually damaged cassette tapes
This work could not exist without the help of many lovely people, and Owen would like to thank everyone who lent their time, advice, and expertise over this last year: Adrienne Murray, Alys Owen, Amara Karapas, Amy Grogan, Andy Burke, Aoife McGarrigle, Brian McIntyre, Catriona Anderson, Chris Roberts, Connor McLennaghan, Cora Farr, Doug Kennedy, Fee Cuimeanach, Honor Gornell, Jane Topping, Karena Hansen, Lily Krempel, Lindsey McAuley, Michelle Hannah, Miriam Ann Foy, Rebecca Rae, Ruby Cedar, Sarah MacSporran, Sofya Mikhaylova, Steph Liddle, Teo Pieczka, The GSA Green Society, and Zhijun Liu. Special thanks to Clare Speir and Robert Speir for their support <3
Someone is trying to reach you
someone is trying to reach you to pour themselves into your ears
someone is trying to reach you to twist in deeper and scribble things on the backs of your eyes
someone is trying to reach you a dial tone on the end of a line neither incoming or outgoing but just always there
someone is trying to reach you
someone out of focus and out of joint
someone is trying to reach you to pencil you in to circle back to draw you from memory before they’ve ever met you
someone is trying to reach you to ask you a few questions about your experience and what precisely it is you will do differently next time
someone is trying to reach you and they are adamant it has to be you who is reached
someone is trying to reach you
someone who holds the hands of the clock fast in a full-nelson
someone is trying to reach you
someone who cannot see but that does not matter
someone is trying to reach you
someone who is willing to be fed to you in small manageable bites
someone is trying to reach you
someone who is not expecting to be received
someone is trying to reach you
someone who knows your name
someone is trying to reach you
someone is trying to reach you