Upcoming Show at The Lanning Gallery 2 of 2

I delivered the work for the show yesterday with my Step Dad and brother to the Lanning Gallery. I think the count was about 32 pieces maybe 34. I might bring a few more up Friday afternoon. I'm not sure what I would have done without their help. It was a lot of work to unload and I needed to replace the stretcher on one piece where the frame after a few years of temperature changes had warped a bit. Afterwards we headed up to Jerome to take photos and eat at Vaqueros - if you get a chance to eat there they have really good hot sauce and guacamole!

The opening will be this Friday June 2nd, 5-8pm with an artist talk at 6pm at the Lanning Gallery in Sedona, AZ.

Above is Dreams Only Go So Far, oil, acrylic, ink and collage on cradled panel, 24 x 12h inches. 

With this show I've been listening to a lot of ambient Post Rock and Post Metal/Death Drone with my normal diet of ambient electronica. I share that, because I feel it's important to the work in a lot of ways. The textures of the collaged materials are very much influenced by the echoed, distorted feedback circling guitar riffs contained within the music I've been listening to.

Above is Closing Credits, oil, acrylic, ink and collage on cradled panel, 24 x 12h inches.

Above is Memento oil, acrylic, ink and collage on cradled panel, 24 x 12h inches.

Upcoming Show At Lanning Gallery - Update 1 of 2

The State of Things Mr. Frank, 

oil, acrylic, ink and collaged materials on board,

10w x 8h inches.

I've been cranking out work getting ready for my show at the Lanning Gallery in June. The opening is June 2nd 6-8. I'll have to double check the times - it might run a little later.

The State of Things Mr. Frank (above) is my nod to Robert Frank who is famous for his book The Americans. https://www.lensculture.com/articles/robert-frank-the-americans 

His photography has been a huge influence on my work. When creating the piece I couldn't decide between naming it "Ode to Robert Frank" or "State of the Nation" and struck with a balance of the two. The work shows a flag windblown and twisted on it's pole. The extreme graphic quality of strong black elements against a collaged ground of gray speaks to the fact that we try to impose black or white solutions onto a world that is nothing, but shades of gray stained by history of what has come before. The end result is a tangled up country that's fractious state could readily lead to it's demise.

Ultimately, it's not really about one political side or another.  In fact, I think the partisan stuff is merely theater to move people to react on way or another. Essentially, manufactured. A means to an end and what that end is deeply concerns me.

Sum of All We Are, 

oil, acrylic, ink and collaged materials on board,

12w x 24h inches.

As an artist I can only create work that addresses my feeling and strike for a universality that will let the work speak outside of my times alone. In that I have chosen to really speak about loss. In my case a loss of a way of life and the country I have known. That being said the new work still addresses the universal sense of loss and can be applied to the loss of a loved one, career, or any other kind of loss that one may mourn.

Lesser Days, 

oil, acrylic, ink and collaged materials on board,

6w x 12h inches.

This new work is a return to my style of working between 2008-2012. I guess creatives are cyclical creatures by nature. For me a lot of it was simply exploring  oils for a while and after a while I really missed the textures and collage elements within my work. I've really come to realize that I don't paint with paint alone.

Gather Yourself, 

acrylic, ink and collaged materials on board,

5w x 5h inches.

Painting really isn't just about paint. In fact in my mind an artist could create an entire painting without a brush or without paint for that matter. Of course, I know the dictionary definition would beg to differ with that view.

That Moment of Doubt, 

oil, acrylic, ink and collaged materials on board,

12w x 9h inches.

The new body of work as many may have noticed in February at my two person show at Modified Arts is decidedly smaller and more intimate. My goal is to really scale the work down and make the viewer really look closely at all the different elements. I guess in a time of bombastic uproar it's nice to speak to people quietly.

American Teenager

“Just Another American Teenager”, graphite on paper 26w X 18″.

Here’s the story on this piece. I was jumping in and off of trains in New York shooting. I decided to ride back to Brooklyn. The girl in the drawing was talking to her mother who was trying to console her. She was upset about firing in with the girls in school and the boy she had a crush on didn’t know she existed. At that moment it highlighted the fact that she wasn’t a Muslim girl, but just another American teenager in my mind. In short people are people. We divide ourselves over the color of our skins, our gender, gender identity, sexual preferences, religious views, social class and who our preferred Presidential candidate happens to be; but really we’re all just people. I can only hope one day that people realize that and drop the hate. ‪

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Street Pharaoh

Above is Street Pharaoh, graphite on paper 44w x 30h inches.  I've been busy knocking out drawings like crazy the last six months. A touch behind on the social media aspect I'm afraid.

When I think of the meaning of my work, I think I'd rather talk about what fascinates me instead. I find that the more I try to find meaning as an artist the more elusive the attainment of that understanding becomes.  I also find that when I decide that a body of work will be "about this" it ends up feeling really contrived and mannered - two things I detest.

With that said I do realize the importance of speaking about your work and taking a moment to know what you're about as an artist. I'm in the process of reevaluating how I define myself.

Illusion of Paradise

Illusion of Paradise, oil on canvas 36h x 60 inches.  With the last post I wrote about the enigmatic way my paintings end up with meaning and how I'm sometimes oblivious even at the end of the full meaning of the piece. With this one, it definitely evolved, but I also know it's meaning.

This one started out with a source photo I took while in Honolulu, Hawaii on a mini-vacation.  I lived there for about a year when I was in 7th grade, so it was a sort of homecoming for me.  It was odd for it to still feel like home after all these years and really a small period of my childhood, but then again when I think of my childhood my year in Hawaii feels more like ten years.  I think the that moment of going from being twelve to thirteen is an very impressionable time.  

Needless to say, while in Hawaii in September I wanted to move back.  I was filled with this sense of "why on earth wasn't my Mom able to be happy here; it's so wonderful?"  That was while on the big Island and still how I felt the first day back on Oahu. After failed attempts of striking up conversations with a few locals though, it came back in focus how cold Hawaii was when we lived there.  

One person's paradise is another person's hell.  I can go into details, but really there's no point.

So, back to the meaning of this painting. I allowed the background to feel a touch stormy and abstract to address how our belief or what paradise is, is actually very abstract and merely an impression.  I also wanted to depict the disillusion of my perception. In Japanese woman's face, in roughly the center, I unconsciously placed all my conflicted feelings about Hawaii. My subconscious mind at work again.

How I feel about Hawaii is simply this.  It will always feel like home to me, I can and will visit it, but will never be able to call it home even though I love the islands dearly.  I also realize that paradise is merely an illusion and can never be attained.

Life Comes Too Quickly

Life Comes Too Quickly, oil on canvas 36h x 24 inches. The inspiration for this piece came from three places/events.  The photo was taken initially on a bike ride from Midtown to Downtown in Phoenix.  I was feeling a little bit frustrated with what was on the easel, so I decided to go for a ride and my habit now is to try to take a camera with me wherever I go. I was aimlessly cycling around with no real place to go or mission. I didn't even care how fast or how far. I still ended up doing a few sprints though. I was struck by the loneliness of this parking lot and wondered for a moment about the lives of the people who were still up around midnight and those who were fast asleep. The second piece of inspiration came from when I was flying home from attending the opening at Abend Gallery in Denver.  I was listening to Jesu and reading Sit Down and Shut Up by Brad Warner. One of the verses stuck in my head "Life Comes Too Quickly". I was feeling exhausted a combination of work and travel and it hit home. My life is flying past me at a million miles an hour it seems and I'm not actually being mindful of the moments I'm currently in.  Last, but not least as I was working on this painting there were a few days of rain and one of them I went for a ride despite the wet roads. I didn't go too crazy, but I passed by a few wet parking lots and decided that even though the source photo was of a dry parking lot didn't mean I couldn't paint a wet one.

This brings me to say something about art.  At the last openings I've encountered folks who want more meaning and some who want less within my works. For those who wanted more I didn't think of what to say to them until weeks afterwards, but I think I can say it here.  Art has it's own intrinsic meaning beyond what the artist feels or intends it to mean or at least this artist.  So much of my work is about process.  I have this initial concept and then the work morphs from that. I also can't help, but feel like my subconscious is trying to tell me something about how I feel about things in my life. In other words - my subconscious knows what's eating me long before my conscious mind is aware of it.  In the end after I complete a painting or drawing - I'm lucky if I know what it means, but understand that the work has meaning whether or not I know what that is.

I think these days artists are way too concerned about their work having meaning.  I don't know why this is really, but my guess is that when people watch a movie or read a book there's always a "point to it".  The thing is this, does the author always know what the book is going to be about when they start writing? Can it be that they just have a flash of a storyline pop in their head. An outline of the characters, scene and plot.  As all the puzzle pieces fit together and the characters are fleshed out the author then follows them through the story and their morality (the author's voice) is then imprinted upon the piece.

It's the same for me as I paint, but my stories are told visually.  The challenge is to verbally express what I've already stated visually without losing the nuance expressed within my brushwork. 

Long Day's End

Long Day's End oil on canvas. 30w x 40h inches.  This is another painting for my solo show at Modified Arts this November the opening on the 3rd Friday November 20th.  It's based off of a photo I took on Market Street in San Francisco.

It's been a lot of fun returning to oils.  Over the summer with the studio just shy of 100 degrees with little humidity, it's been nice having a longer drying window.  Now that the Fall is finally here, I may need to switch over to faster drying mediums in order to get everything finished in time for the show.

Busy Fall Season

Admittedly, I've been neglecting the blog a little bit. This Fall has been a jam packed season for me with four shows one right after the other.  The work above will be in my solo show at Modified Arts called "Amor fati" this November - Crash acrylic, ink and collaged materials on canvas, 36w x 60h inches.

I had two songs from two different bands come up in my Pandora cue and both were titled "Amor fati", so I looked it up and it was a perfect fit for how I've been feeling lately. The loose translation is "love of fate" the concept being that whether good or bad at the time - everything that has happened in your life has made you who you are and is therefore for the best. Considering you wouldn't be who you are if you had not had to live through those experiences.

That fits for me. While painting my abandoned desertscape paintings I really have tried to make sense of the events of my life, particularly my childhood. I have also dealt in those pieces with feelings of disconnect and how my memories feel like empty shells or abandoned buildings, because I can't really go back into that past and most of the people within those memories are now gone from this world.

I don't paint it to dwell in the past so much as to deal with my feelings and to achieve a deeper understanding of who I am. I also feel that the message is ultimately - to let the past go and be in the present and that the present is all you have. Once it's past all you can really do is apologize, forgive or release it. 
There's no going back to fix it and constantly bringing it to the forefront of your life only cobbles your present and stifles your future.

On to talking about Crash.  With this piece I wanted to create the sense of it being a memory. There are strong shadows to represent our mind's natural tendency to dualistically view the world as black or white, but at the same time there is this murky, distant/untouchable, dreamlike quality.

I was interviewed by a journalist for Sunset Magazine who is doing an issue devoted to Roosevelt Row and Downtown Phoenix the month of my show. My fingers are crossed that they'll use one of my images as well.

Urban Life

Here's three of the new works that will be on display this month at Abend Gallery's "Urban Life" show in Denver, Colorado. The opening is this Friday, October 9th 6-9pm and I'll be there. If your in the area please stop by.  Here's my artist page on their site. http://abendgallery.com/html_artists/jonathan-howard-artist-page/#.VhWxcShuRGI

Green and Gray @ Tempe Center for the Arts

Here's a photo from the opening at the Green and Gray show at the Tempe Center for the Arts. The show runs from October 2nd to January 2nd. Here's a link for more information: http://www.tempe.gov/city-hall/community-services/tempe-center-for-the-arts/gallery-at-tca

Empty Sentiment

Just finished "Empty Sentiment", acrylic, ink and collaged materials on canvas 15 x 60 inches on canvas. I started it back in March and it sorta spawned other work and then I did some other projects. I looped back around to it this week. I'm not sure I understand my creative process or if I should even try. Maybe, I should just work the way I do and not worry?

This is an abandoned station right at the tip of Arizona on the boarder with California. It's actually across the street of a former in-state customs checkpoint that's been converted to a border patrol station. It seems odd it's so far north.

I woke up this morning realizing how much the visual technology of my age is part of my work. I also was struck with how my peers and I have only scratched the surface of what is possible within this golden age of visual technological tools.

I'm not sure what the next step is, but I know that in some regards that I'm shackled by conservative norms and traditional thinking when it comes to art making. I studied both painting and intermedia back in college. In the end I decided that I was a painter at heart and communicated best through paint. With that said - I also felt as if intermedia-conceptual work although not tethered by object creation and materials was still governed by conventions. In short being unconventional and radical is still governed by a play book and a set of mental constructs. I always hear "think outside of the box", but ultimately our linear minds can only create new boxes to think within. 

Aftermath in progress

  

Work in progress entitled Aftermath oil on canvas, 12h x 36w inches. This is from a photo I took a weekend back outside of 29 Palms in California. It was a great site. 

Tonight I went to an artist meet and greet for the Roosevelt Row scene in Downtown Phoenix. A scene I've been part of for years. It was a great event. I spoke about my work and although I like to think that I do a good job of it, in someways there's room for improvement. 

In the new batch of abandoned desert works I'm trying to speak about living in the desert as well as about the buildings I render. The relationship to the coming of night and the coming and going of monsoon storms. I was born and raised in the Phoenix area until I was twelve and returned briefly for the summer of 87' only to leave again for Santa Fe another desert city to return about a year later. I've lived most of my life in the desert and I am a desert rat at heart. Although I love big cities and dream of living in Oregon, I'm very connected to the desert.

As a artist I find that the meaning within my work can be very complex and deeply buried within my psyche. Time to stop thinking and let my subconscious mind take over while I paint and reveal more to me about who I am.

 

Riverfront Property Somewhere Else

Just completed Riverfront Property Somewhere Else oil on canvas, 24h x 48w. It's based on a source photo I took along side Route 66 in California halfway between Kingman, AZ and Barstow, CA. My wife and I had gone up for the Rockabilly Festival up in Lake Havasu, AZ and decided to go exploring before coming home.

The title is based on the billboard, but as an aside it does seem like the grass is always greener somewhere else. In this case that may very well be true, but no matter where we are or how good we have it - inevitably it seems like we want what someone else has, because it's better than our lot in life.

In the desert works I've been playing around with the addition of monsoon skies. In the summer growing up in Phoenix the monsoon storms have been a big part of my life. They also have a wonderful double meaning. The storms during the summer are particularly turbulent, but at the same time with the destruction that they can bring they also bring life giving water to a parched landscape. There are very few moments in our lives that don't mark transitional periods, but sometimes in my life some years are more transitional than others.

Study for In a Lonely Place

Knocked out a study for In a Lonely Place last week. I'm still not completely content with her face, but this study has brought me much closer. I will be repainting that portion of the big piece starting tonight.

I have also been working on more abandoned/desertscapes. At the moment I'm working very hard not to pigeon hole myself. I have so many seemingly disparate ideas and directions at times, but it may simply be a case where I don't see the connections at this moment. In short, there is a connection, a thread that runs through everything and if I self-censor myself I'll never get to see it.

In other news! I will be part of a exhibit in October at the Tempe Center for the Arts called "Green and Gray".  More specifics to come, but I will have four large abandoned/desertscapes in the show.

In a Lonely Place - In Progress

I've been working on a new series of works dealing with rented rooms. Hotel and motel rooms are really interesting places in that many intimate things occur within them, but they are inhabited only briefly and by numerous people. What I have noticed is that they are spaces that can unlock or reveal inhibitions of a hotel's guests unlike other spaces.

This is the first canvas of In a Lonely Place series that are in this vein. In a Lonely Place, oil on canvas, 48 x 60 inches. It's been really interesting for me to switch from exterior spaces and a more macro view to a interior space that has a much more intimate psychological story that is playing out.

It's really hard to explain how I'm feeling right now. I'm excited and nervous at the same time. Without meaning to it seems as if I've sorta "niched" myself as an artist. It's about time that I'm doing something out of the "box" so to speak.

Waiting in Line

Finished up Waiting in Line, mixed media on canvas, 24 x 48h inches. The source photo is from my trip up to Portland, Oregon this summer. I actually spent two days roaming around the downtown.

In this piece I kept the palette really minimal. The figures beneath the sign are the only full color elements. The title is inspired by the Zero7 song "Waiting in Line". The lyrics about looking at the world and not being content with what you see really hit home for me. My thought is how at time the world can seem very big, cold and distant, but the people in my life provide the color, love, and relief from these feelings. At openings I'm often told that my work is dark, but really my work is about the light and the dark is only there for contrast. 

The Uncertainty Is Always There - Finished

Finished up on The Uncertainty Is Always There this morning. It's funny, but I try to be as true to my street photos as I can, but at times there are elements like a piece of litter or an architectural element in the photo just don't seem to make sense in the final painting. Those elements look like a mistake and detract more than anything, so it's best to edit them out. Nonetheless, I am not quick to omit them, usually paint them in initially and then reluctantly strike them out within the last day or two of working on a canvas.  One aspect of the original photo I kept was the angle. I felt it added to the precarious nature of being uncertain about the future and what one should do next.

I sort of relate to the main figure in this painting. He's the tattooed punk rocker type like me. He wasn't at ease like he had something eating at him. Something he didn't really know what to do to fix. I feel like we're all there with things in our lives, but we just push them to the back of our minds most of the time and get on with it. Even though they're pushed to the back burner - they resurface and bug us on our way to work later on. No matter what though - uncertainty is a fact of life and is always there.

The Uncertainty Is Always There - In Progress

Here's a progress shot of The Uncertainty Is Always There acrylic and collage on canvas.  I've been using a subdued color palette lately instead of just black and white.  I like the added depth and playing the warm deep browns off of the  cool dark blue/greys.  It just feels more dynamic to me.

The title for this piece comes from the uncertainty of our times and the uncertainty I feel at times. It's the ghost that seems to always haunt us.

I've been entering into juried exhibitions and it will be a while until I know the results for a few of them.  It's kind of nice though to have the work from the last show in the studio on my shelves to look at while I'm painting more work.  It's interesting, but paintings feed off of each other.  My hope is that these paintings will dovetail into each other better. 

Fraction

Finished Fraction, oil on canvas 12x12 inches on Thursday night. My first completed oil painting in 15 years. Thankfully, Gamblin's new solvents and mediums don't trigger my asthma as badly as traditional turpentine and damar varnish do. The drying time of alkyd resin is a little bit different, but the window for the drying time in comparison to acrylics is nice.

I don't think I will be abandoning the act of painting with acrylics, but it's nice to have options, depending on the piece.

I opted to do a detail from Preoccupation. It's interesting, but sharing my work on Instagram (@jhowardpaintings) has enlightened my process a bit. Due to the forced square format I often shoot details of works in progress rather than the full piece. Sometimes I actually like the details better than the whole piece.

Now that the show is up at Modified Arts - "Lost in Transition" October 17th to November 16th. I'm still busy in the studio, just taking some time to play with new medias and techniques. Need to have a little fun before I get back to work on the next major body of work.

A Day Like Any Other

Just a reminder tonight is the opening for my new exhibit at Modified Arts October 17th, 6-9 pm. Here's their website for more information www.modifiedarts.org 

Above is A Day Like Any Other, acrylic and collage on canvas 12 x 12 inches Monday morning. I've had a lot of fun painting these little square canvases. After working on that big 36 x 120 inch canvas that ironically feels rather small in the Modified Arts space with it's giant walls, it's nice to work on something with a different time table for completion.

This is fourth in a series of Phoenix cityscapes completed for the show. They're almost a small series in themselves.  When I painted Temporal many thought it was Phoenix last year and although it was San Francisco that particular intersection felt very Phoenix like with the bank and car dealerships with the more modern architecture. When I've painted these works I've used the same palette to much success.

With this piece and a few of the drawings with the mood and titles I have been drawn to the idea that a "ordinary" or "typical" day is something special. I feel like our society has been getting into a almost Disney/Hollywood mode where every day has to be great, spectacular, epic, and a technicolor experience of some sort. It's really an unhealthy premise to begin and end each of your days with. If everything has to be ultra eventful every moment - I think you miss the subtly and quiet beauty of life's more simple moments.