Michael Owen is a native Rhode Islander who grew up in North Kingstown and has lived most of his adult life in Providence. He has long been fascinated with the places where land and sea interact. Islands, estuaries, rivers, bays and shorelines are rich with life and visual interest and are ever-changing.

After earning a BFA from Rhode Island School of Design in 1990, Michael settled in Providence and began to paint the areas along the waterfront there. Hardly idyllic, these were gritty spaces of urban decay that were nevertheless beautiful in their own way. In 1998, Michael moved to New York City to study at the New York Academy of Art, earning an MFA in the year 2000.

In the early 2000s, back in Rhode Island, Michael took a sailing class and was bitten by the bug. He began sailing as often as he could and even taught himself to build wooden boats to explore Narragansett Bay in. Now, sailing, boatbuilding and painting keep him occupied with endless learning and growth.

As a painter Michael has explored coastal areas in Rhode Island and Southern Massachusetts, as well as farther afield when on vacations with his family. He hopes viewers of his paintings can feel the awe he feels in front of the sea and the sky and the shore.