HEIDI HOWARD

ROOTS RUN GOLD TO PINK
May 31 - June 24, 2019
Reception May 31, 6 - 8 pm
Gaa Gallery Provincetown

Gaa Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of work by visual artist Heidi Howard, with an opening reception on May 31 from 6 - 9 pm, at Gaa Gallery Provincetown, located at 494 Commercial Street, Provincetown, MA. Heidi Howard: Roots Run Gold to Pink is on view through Monday, June 24.

Heidi Howard is a New York-based painter who creates vibrant and intimate portraits of friends and family. Her figurative work draws on the intimacies of friendship as a foundational element to produce vivid and gestural portraits which bridge aspects of representation and abstraction. Through the interaction of textures, pattern, mark making, and rendering space, each of Howard’s paintings is a collaboration with her sitter. Extending beyond typical conventions of portraiture, Howard’s paintings create a unique and emotive structure based on the color feelings, style, and qualities of her subjects.

Roots Run Gold to Pink features recent paintings by Howard including self-portraits and portraits of fellow artists. Through the use of floral elements, staccato brush strokes, and painterly rendering of textiles, garments, and textured patterning, these images tenderly channel the abundance and resilience of nature. The exhibition also includes a recent sonic collaboration with her mother, sound artist, Liz Phillips. Building off of their recent collaboration, Relative Fields in a Garden, at the Queens Museum, the installation uses ceramic and mixed media objects as conduits for sounds recorded in their familial garden in Queens. This exhibition transforms the gallery into communal space, with an eye toward maternal power, shared space, and the functions of care and growth. Howard creates a collaborative environment that pulses with the force fields of femininity and solitude.

Heidi Howard (b. 1986, New York, NY) is a graduate of Columbia University's Master of Fine Arts program. Howard has twice exhibited her work in solo exhibitions at Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York: Woven Traits (2017) and Portrait and Dream (2015). Recent two-person exhibitions include Relative Fields in a Garden, a site-specific collaboration with sound artist Liz Phillips, made on the occasion of Queens International 2018: Volumes at the Queens Museum, Queens, NY; and the 2017 two-person exhibition Verano with Esteban Cabeza de Baca, Gaa Gallery, Wellfleet, MA. Group exhibitions include Spring 2017, Gaa Projects, Cologne, Germany; Red Matters, Hunterdon Museums of Art, Clinton, NJ; Bomb Pop Up!, Brooklyn, NY; and Intimisms, James Cohan Gallery, New York. Howard's press reviews include The Brooklyn Rail, Art F City, and online magazines artcritical.com and onverge.com.