Catherine OwensArtist and Director Ireland
Catherine Owens is an Irish artist and director living in New York City. Her work as an artist is largely installation based, with work originating from ideas that evolve through drawings, painting, sculpture, photography, sound, film and video.
Owens is known for her collaborative work as a director for visual content and in particular as the creative director of screen imagery for the Irish band U2 on their last five world tours. She is the co-director of the film titled U23D, which was made for 3D Imax and 3D Digital theatrical release in 2008. U23D documents the U2’s live performance in South America on their critically acclaimed 2006 Vertigo Tour. It was the first live action feature length 3D digital film made for theatrical release and it’s creation spearheaded a series of major technological breakthroughs in 3D film making.
The New York Times hailed it as “The first IMAX movie that deserves to be called a work of art.”
Owens directed U2’s spell binding ‘Original Of The Species’ video which was nominated for two VH1 Music video awards. The video which explored CG motion capture technology was the precursor for her work on U23D. She has also created and directed visual content and animation for the San Francisco based group Kronos Quartet and for the Chinese Pipa player Wu Man, who’s Carnegie Hall debut featured an intricate 20 minute animation directed by Owens. She has attended four Lincoln Center Director’s Labs in New York as a guest artist and was a keynote speaker at SIGGRAPH in 2008, where she spoke about working in 3D under the title; Giving Technology Emotion: From the Artist’s Mind to “U23D”
In 2009 Owens directed the captivating video content for U2’s Grammy and Brits performances as well as directing the key content for U2’s highly successful 360° tour. For this tour she created content that featured Desmond Tutu, Maya Angelou, Sinead O’Connor and work by the Iranian photographer Shirin Neshat.
In April 2010 Owens traveled to India to make a 3D documentary about Kumbh Mela, the largest spiritual gathering in the world that takes place once every 12 years. Currently in postproduction on Kumbh Mela she is also in development on a 3D feature film project for an Oscar Wilde fairytale – The Selfish Giant.
