Owen Rival

Owen Rival was born in 1999 in Toronto. He received his BFA from the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence in 2021.

His paintings, primarily made in oil and acrylic on canvas, move between narration and abstraction. Through familiar scenes, often centered on the artist himself and his wife, Rival transforms everyday life into a psychological space that feels unstable, luminous, and quietly theatrical.

With meticulous precision, he combines saturated color, atmospheric distortion, and shifting effects of light to depict not only what is seen, but what is felt. His images, initially recognizable, gradually open onto more ambiguous states: memory, sensation, inner tension, or a suspended moment.

His work approaches intimacy as a universal language, revealing the emotional intensity hidden within ordinary scenes.