Rachel Howard

Donated by the artist

Colour: The colours in the catalogue illustration are fairly accurate although the overall tonality contains fewer magenta undertones. Condition: This work is in very good condition. No restoration is apparent when examined under ultraviolet light.
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By applying and removing paint, Howard creates a palimpsest. The viewer thus simultaneously experiences the final moment in the painting process, as well as the feeling of perpetual flux.

This is deepened by the blurring of lines between the genres of abstraction and figuration. A suggestion of landscape is only quietly present, watery waves seemingly shift in and out of focus, dissolving into unfamiliar images – mere echoes of perceivable shapes.  

The trace of the artist’s hand in the paintings is subtly perceivable, and Howard describes how the surfaces, ‘have a disintegration about them; everything is falling apart, atomised’. With only hints of colour characterising the palette of the canvases – gentle iterations of yellow, red and green – the line becomes the primary active element in each composition. A tension exists as linear marks seem to stitch and then unpick themselves; emerging and submerging, appearing and fading, rising and falling.