Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard (born 1969) is a British artist.

Early life and career

Rachel Howard grew up on a farm in Easington, County Durham. She attended The Mount School, York a Quaker school from the age of sixteen and the stories, concerns and questions raised by religion have had a profound effect on her work throughout her career.Hubbard, Sue "Towards Meaning: The Abstract Paintings of Rachel Howard" in ''Rachel Howard -New Paintings'' Pulchritude Press, 2007

I went to a Quaker school and it had such a powerful effect on my life that I've carried it with me ever since. I'm an atheist now but Quakerism was the first time as a child I came across a religious structure that made some sense … the silence, contemplation, the acknowledgement of our responsibilities not just to each other but also to nature, they are pacifists. I was quite unruly as a child — Quakerism makes you take responsibility for your own actions without being heavy-handed, it's subtle and beautiful. The Quakers believe in celebrating the light within, it'll come as no surprise that James Turrell is a Quaker, for example.

Howard graduated from Goldsmiths College, London, in 1991.

In 1992, Howard was awarded the Prince's Trust Award to support her art practice. She received the British Council Award in 2008, and in 2004 was shortlisted for the Jerwood Drawing Prize.

She had four children in her twenties, which helped her focus in the studio.

In 2008 Howard designed the front cover for ''The Big Issue'' newspaper.

Work

While Howard more recently employs oil paint, from 1995–2008 she primarily used household paint

Howard allows the paint to separate inside its can so that the pigment and varnish can be used in isolation. The pigment is applied to the edge of the canvas, then diluted and manipulated through the addition of the varnish. Gravity's pull then draws the paint down the canvas.

Of her work, Howard says:

I'm interested in how we each make sense of the world. In paintings such as ''Missive to the Mad'' and ''Missive to the Sad'', I use the grid in varying degrees of degradation and dissolution, building up the ground and then the grid only to knock it back using gravity, turps and gloss varnish, a balance between control and chaos. They are odes to madness and melancholia, the gentle slip and slide of life, what the mind can do and where it can lead you. I think that's why I'm fascinated with religion and human beliefs and what we need to make it all work.

''Sin Paintings''

Howard's ''Sin Paintings'' comprise seven monumental canvases, each painted in a range of intensely saturated reds, offset by the use of bright yellow and orange. The paintings were exhibited in a solo exhibition entitled ''Guilty'', at the Bohen Foundation, New York in 2003.Glueck, Grac
"Art in Review: Rachel Howard ''Guilty''"
28 November 2003 The paintings have a glossy, mirror-shine surface, through which a simple cruciform shape emerges. They do differ from one another; ''Pride'' is an offering of brilliant red down-strokes, with a cross discernible in its centre; the reds of ''Envy are more individuated, with yellows breaking through here and there, and the cross far less readable; the hues of ''Anger'' are in a darker, more brooding range.

Although the religious element seems obvious within these works, and the series certainly engages with issues relating to religion or morality, Howard herself has confessed that the title 'Guilty' in part refers to the guilty pleasure of painting.

''Suicide Paintings''

Howard's ''Suicide Paintings'' were first shown at the Bohen Foundation in New York, 2007, and were later exhibited at Haunch of Venison, London, 2008Hubbard, Su

21 January 2008 The series evolved after an acquaintance of Howard's committed suicide. He was discovered, not in the imagined drama, 'swinging from the rafters', but kneeling in a pose almost of prayer. It was this particular detail that Howard found most disturbing, and which led her to create the series, coupled with the fact that for her, suicide is one of the last taboos. The source material for the paintings came from trawling through forensic magazines and internet sites for pictures of suicides. These were then abstracted from their contexts within Howard's rapidly executed line drawings, forming the basis of the paintings.

The series ultimately offers an investigation into the aesthetics of suicide.Husni-Bey, Adelit

March/April 2008 Possible instruments of death are depicted – a pair of scissors, a ladder, as well as the symbolic, lone ''Black Dog'' (a common metaphor for depression, coined by 18th Century writer Samuel Johnson). Then there are the faceless figures; many hang from ropes, while the body of a woman lying across a bed recalls the psychosexual claustrophobia of Walter Sickert.

Sue Hubbard wrote of the series in ''The Independent'':

''Via Dolorosa''

Between 2005–2009 Howard worked on her first commission, titled ''Repetition is Truth - Via Dolorosa''.Caragliano, Renat

''La Repubblica'', 18 April 2011 Via Dolorosa, Latin for 'Way of Suffering', is the name of a street within the Old City of Jerusalem, believed to be the path that Jesus walked, bearing the cross, towards his crucifixion. It is also another name for the fourteen Stations of the Cross, which depict these final hours of his life – The Passion.

While Howard's fourteen paintings reference The Passion, the creation of the series was in fact provoked by one of the most shocking photographs to emerge from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Detainees routinely endured torture and humiliation at the hands of American military personnel, as exposed through the media. The particular image was of a prisoner standing on a box, hooded and wired with electrodes; thus the box becomes the modern day equivalent of the Cross – a tool of humiliation and torment.Esposito, Pasqual

''Il Mattino'', 16 April 2011 Thus, the paintings offer a broader commentary on the universality of human rights abuses and people's capability for cruelty towards each other. A publication accompanies the work with texts by art historian and curator Joachim Pissarro and Shami Chakrabarti.

Joachim Pissarro has described the series as "sublime", in accordance with Immanuel Kant's '' Critique of Judgement'': It is this idea of limitlessness that Howard seeks to engage with, the belief that human suffering is never-ending, hence the name of the work – Repetition is Truth.

Selected solo exhibitions

* 1999 'Rachel Howard: New Paintings', A22 Gallery, London, UK
* 2001 'Painting 2001', Anne Faggionato, London, UK.
* 2002 'Tightrope', Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Ohio, USA.
* 2003 'Can't Breathe Without You', Anne Faggionato, London, UK.
* 2003 'Guilty', Bohen Foundation, New York, USA.
* 2007 'Fiction/Fear/Fact', Bohen Foundation, New York, USA.
* 2007 'Rachel Howard - New Paintings', Gagosian Gallery, Los Angeles CA, USA.
* 2008 'How to Disappear Completely - New Work by Rachel Howard', Haunch of Venison, London, UK.
* 2008 'Rachel Howard: invited by Philippa van Loon', Museum van Loon, Amsterdam, Netherlands.
* 2009 'Der Wald', Haunch of Venison, Zurich, Switzerland.
* 2010 'Human Shrapnel - oil drawings on paper', Other Criteria, New Bond, London, UK.
* 2011 'Folie A Deux', Blain, Southern, 21 Dering Street, London, UK.
* 2011 'Repetition is Truth', Via Dolorosa, Museo Madre, Naples, Italy.
* 2011 'Still Life / Still Here Rachel Howard New Paintings', Sala Pelaires, Palma, Mallorca, Spain.
* 2014 'Northern Echo' Blain, Southern, Hanover Square, London, UK.
* 2015 Rachel Howard At Sea 'Jerwood Gallery' Hastings, UK.
* 2016 Rachel Howard MACRO Testaccio, Rome, Italy.
* 2018 'Der Kuss' Blain, Southern, Hanover Square, London, UK.
* 2018 'Repetition is Truth - Via Dolorosa' Newport Street Gallery, Vauxhall, London, UK.
* 2019 L'appel du vide Blain, Southern, New York, US.
*2018 'Rachel Howard' MASS MoCA, Massachusetts, US.

Collections

*Ackland Art Museum, North Carolina
*Museum van Loon, Amsterdam
*David Roberts Foundation, London
*Goss-Michael Foundation, Dallas
*Murderme collection, London
*Hiscox collection, London
*Jerwood Collection
*Tate Archive
*Pio Monte Della Misericordia, Naples, IT
*The wareHOUSE, Wieland Collection, Atlanta, US

Notes and references

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Howard, Rachel
1969 births
Living people
20th-century English women artists
21st-century English women artists
Alumni of Goldsmiths, University of London
British contemporary painters
English contemporary artists
English women painters
People from County Durham