The Work
While Howard employs oil paint, since 1995 she has primarily used household paint, setting her apart from the likes of Rothko and Barnett Newman.
"The fluidity of the paint is so gorgeous I felt like I wanted to conquer it and control it."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.
“The first thing that strikes you about pictures, this seamless downpour of paint: a vertical torrent that seems to advance from one painting to another, sometimes fading out before it reaches the bottom of the canvas, only to fall unbidden from the upper edge of another." “Howard’s paintings are built architecturally. The terms she uses are those of the builder: construction, reconstruction, building, layering and assembling. Gravity is her brush. Layers of paint accrue built by dripped pathways of paint."Read more about this topic: Rachel Howard
Famous quotes containing the word work:
“This life is a war we are not yet
winning for our daughters’ children.
Don’t do your enemies’ work for them.
Finish your own.”
—Marge Piercy (b. 1936)
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—Elbert Hubbard (1856–1915)