Exhibition Notes

Undressed:

 A Body of Work Exploring Our Human Connection With Trees

Trees are our still, silent counterparts, rooted in the landscape. Our ladders to the stars. Trees have long provided a metaphor for the human condition as we search for our roots, branch out in new directions or turn over a new leaf. Their seasonal transformation can remind us of both our aspirations and our mortality. They stand as monuments to bare existence, dedicated to growth. Feet in the dirt, looking for the light, we are all, to some extent, planted here.

We share some similarities in design with trees, our basic physical structure of trunk and limbs and our interior landscape of branching blood vessels. I play with these likenesses in raw material and organic form. My work often has a narrative element, hinting at the mythic resonance suggested in tree forms. Some of the paintings describe human-shaped hollows in deadfall trunks, alluding to the Norse creation myth of Ask and Embla. According to the Poetic Edda, Odin drew these first two people from fallen Ash and Elm trunks. I frequently play with the idea of decaying wood bursting with life and being transformed through the narrative process of human imagination. It is a curious life we share with trees, sometimes stricken, always striving.

I work in the woods, drawing inspiration from being immersed in the landscape whilst making studies. Sharing the air. These initial studies are often done in chalk pastel because of the intensity and portability of the medium. The fragility and ephemeral qualities also appeal; chalk paintings can be ruined with a sneeze or a stray sleeve! Some of these studies become finished pieces, some I use to create larger paintings in oil or acrylic. Most of the time I choose to work with acrylic because of its flexibility and fast-drying properties. I work in layered glazes, energetic brushwork and dry over-painting. I tend to use a bent, slightly corroded palette knife to drag and scrape paint, sometimes needles, brush ends and sticks to scratch the surface. Working this way, I try to find a balance between building and revealing colour, coaxing a painting into being. A piece is finished when I feel the raw material has been remade to express something of my experience in the landscape, complete with growth and erosion, infused with the strength and energy of the inspiring trees. Animate and resilient.

I’ve included blog posts written about particular pieces, and I hope these give you some feel for where the work is coming from and how it comes about in specific instances. Your comments are most welcome; please take a card with my contact details or leave your thoughts in the notebook provided.

Thanks for having a look!

Many thanks to the LEC for hosting this exhibition. Please contact the artist with any queries about the work or sales. 

***

Visit the website Friday 23 March for more details...

Undressed

There will be more on the website soon, once the actual work is on walls. Virtual Preview:

Friday, 23 March 

Do drop by, have a virtual drink, and leave a link to your work!

Mounting Excitement

Adrift (Hammerhead Shark Form) K Howell 2012
 Pastel on Paper 28cm x 28cm

     If you've ever worked in Framing, you'll know that getting the mount right is pretty fundamental. The word overcut still sends a chill through my system.  But there are so many ways to be inadequate when cutting mounts. My supervisor, when I was training, used to quote the cost of the sheet before I cut anything; just to clarify what was at stake. Rather drained the joy from playing with a razor blade.
     So I have this pile of work to be prepared for exhibition, and I need to cut mounts. It's a bit like renting a suit for an Occasion. The sharp, finished edges give pieces the protection they need to go out into the world. A mount gives work some breathing space within the clear boundaries of the frame.
     Cutting mounts is enjoyable for a repetitive task, because by the time you've cut three perfect sides, it becomes Vital that the fourth cut be exact. And to keep things running smoothly, there's lighter fluid. Exciting!
      So I'm not really thinking about putting work Out There so much as I'm looking forward to the curious thrill of cutting mounts.
More exhibition details soon.

Under the Skin

Grove K Howell 2012 Acrylic on Board 40cm x 61cm

     In view of the weather - strangely tired of the ubiquitous grey, lovely as it is - I've been working on a piece based on a study from last spring. There's a wood I frequent that has some clumps of very young trees. I love visiting this little grove because the sinewy trunks are electric and crackling with growth. Still spindly, they are finding their feet. So to speak.
     This piece is not dissimilar to a polarised light micrograph of human skin with hair follicles. (See here at the Science Photo Library, credited to Dr Keith Wheeler.)
     The landscape we live in gets under our skin - but maybe it was always there? Do we recognise design similarities on some level?
     I'm working on another tree portrait now and a winter take on a nearby grove that are both much darker, so this was an interesting sidestep in anticipation of spring, and the world refreshed.

Reflections

Lightly Here K Howell 2012 Acrylic on Paper 36cm x 26cm

      In slick February mud, a crater-basin  collects the rain and grows a flat forest...
       One of the advantages to having an unadopted road nearby is the infinite capacity for puddles. They constantly change shape and colour. Each one contains its own shifting microcosm, a small reflection of the surrounding world.
     Trees don't move around much, being rooted in the earth the way they are. But they can turn up in unusual places.
     Puddles are transporting! Even without wellies.

Sum of its Parts

Oak Queen (Detail)  K Howell 2012 Acrylic on Board 61cm x 92cm

     In any creative endeavour, we're looking for synergy, aren't we? We want to make something that proclaims itself Complete and more than the materials, time, energy, inspiration and technique that go into the making. Greater than the sum of its parts, as the saying goes.

     Well, I'm posting a detail of a finished painting. For a few reasons. It's large and will probably look ridiculous reduced to a thumbnail. Looking at something as a reduced, flat image, rather than 'life size' in a large space can be dispiriting. I don't want to see this piece reduced right now. I enjoyed the process, and need to take the real thing by surprise a few times to see what's there. 

     So, there it is. I hope the part is indicative of the whole, and I hope one day to see the whole and make an assessment of its state of completion in view of the sum of its parts.

Hiatus

Before the Snow K Howell 2012 Pastel on Paper 28cm x 28cm

     Please check out the sidebar of blogs to visit. Hopefully it will grow as I find my way about, but it's a start.
     In the meantime, my Lego duties continue. I don't want to boast about how I'm spending my time whilst four-year-old is poorly, but I know the names of all the Octonauts. And today, it seemed he had turned a corner and was properly recovering. When I ventured to get paints out, he was aghast. What are you DOING? WE are playing cards!
     After a stack of books, he decided we must watch a knight film. A knight film? We watched Henry V. He loved it. He has decided he's still very unwell. He's pretending to sleep now, but I know he's organising tomorrow's agenda...