Jared Owens is a visual artist currently based in Charleston, SC. A New York native, Owens’s art career began as a self-taught portrait artist ten years ago in federal prison. Owens eventually turned his attention to the less confined, organic nature of non-objective art and currently works in a variety of media including acrylics, oil, ceramics, and reclaimed materials. His vibrant, layered style shape-shifts and transcends the notion that abstract art cannot be political or socially conscious. In a case of art imitating life, much of Owens’s material choices focus on dismantling the idea that that which society discards can never have worth. Recent exhibits include the “Marking Time: Prison Arts and Activism” conference at Rutgers in New Brunswick, NJ, the Spoleto Arts Festival at Mitchell Hill Gallery in Charleston, and the OG Experience in Chelsea, New York. His paintings have appeared in an episode of Bravo TV’s “Southern Charm” and will be featured in the upcoming exhibit “Black Bone: Affrilachian Poets and Visual Artists” at Transylvania University.