Fine Art research Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard

Rachel Howard is an English artist born in County Durham in 1969. She graduated from Goldsmith's College in 1991 with a degree in Fine Arts. Howard now works and lives in London, best known for her abstract and expressive paintings. Howard uses oil paint now, however from 1995 to 2008 she used household paint to create her artworks. She allowed the paint to separate inside its can so the pigment and varnish could be used in isolation. The pigment is applied to the edge of the canvas and manipulated through the addition of the varnish. Gravity then draws the paint down the canvas. While her painting technique is something a bit different, it gives her painting a very unique look. The use of strong vertical and horizontal lines also give a feeling of depth.

Howard's "Suicide Paintings" were first shown at the Bohen Foundation in New York, 2007. This series of paintings evolved after an acquaintance of Howard committed suicide. The series offers an investigation into the aesthetics of suicide. Her work not only shows the aftermath, but also some instruments of death; a pair of scissors; a ladder. Howard also uses the symbolic, lone ‘‘Black Dog’’ which is often associated with depression.

In Howard's paintings she tries to convey the present day suffering she's concerned with. In the last decade, various wraiths have been conjured between the layered lines of paint, from the black dog of depression to victims of addiction, torture, self-harm or madness.

With some of Howard's paintings the familiar metaphor for the suicidal depressive, a black dog appears. Instead of the dog being fierce and threatening it is emaciated, perhaps to mimic the helplessness of the sufferer. Then there are the smudgy black figures with faces obscured, their shadowy, disintegrating bodies given up to their final moments. With each body of her work she's directly concerned with exploring the intricacies of what it means to be human, considering our capacity to feel, think, question, hurt, breakdown, worship, sin, rebel or conform. Howard is interested in the extent to which her paintings might physically and emotionally resonate with the viewer. Rachel Howard uses her style of painting to great effect on a subject that isn't greatly talked about and brings awareness to a matter through her art. Rachel Howard makes the viewer think more about such subjects such as suicide and depression.