Kate Howe Christmas Open Studio and Work in Progress Show: The Erotics of Power

About

The Erotics of Power: a feminist painter responding at the Limit

Including two new monumental works in progress: Susanna and the Others and Blue (Untitled) from Howe's Battersea studio, this show will consist of selected pieces from Howe's current body of work: The Erotics of Power and pieces in progress. These paintings have all been produced from June 2021 to present, and this is the first time these pieces have all been shown together. 

Howe will be giving an artist's talk at the PV on December 20 at 7:30 which will last about 30 minutes and will be followed by a Q and A. 

Artist Statement: 

I’m almost always painting about power and control. I’m into the deep machinations of the relational politics of my alien creatures. They are sensual manipulative beasts, they turn and dive and penetrate and flow and stream and wind around each other like eels. Never settling into the organic body, flesh, medical diagram, or alien autopsy, they want to be beautiful but just end up uneasy and sometimes trembling. They turn into each other and back into themselves. They are just as bad with boundaries as we are. Sometimes even just the single creatures feel to me like a struggle for power and control, like they are trying to both turn and flatten like they are trying to become one face or another. They exist in all dimensions, orientations, and timelines. They exist outside of gender and only in relation to each other and themselves. They are our visceral monstrous envy, our greed, our succulence, our desire, our ache, our growling ego. 

Howe's research-based practice is situated in the tradition of European Renaissance Painting. Following the tradition of Rubens, Titian, and Gentileschi, Howe uses traditional materials and media to create monumental 'genre paintings' situated in a world populated by forms that she generates off of knotted tea towels. Some of these figurations are then shot through with thread and laden with haunted objects spilling out of them. These objects are found, appropriated, or created from memory, and are associated with the lineage of learned feminine behaviors. The large paintings are hung in space and both the front and the back of the painting are worked surfaces. These paintings will include sewn and quilted elements, embracing a tradition of sewing handed down through the women in Howe's family, and a practice Howe was 'banned' from doing when being trained as a painter in the 90s. ('I was told to avoid anything that could associate me with "women's work" as it would invalidate my practice and keep me from ever being taken seriously.') A breast cancer survivor, Howe approaches the stitch as a suture and is preoccupied with healing, scarring, mending, and the new thing created by an act of healing following a traumatic rupture. Howe sees the rupture as existing across relationships, societal structures, gender hierarchies, at the cellular level, and in bodily processes such as pain and repair. 

Howe is currently in her second year at the Royal College of Art (MA Painting) (GB) and is in the process of applying to the Ph. D. program. Howe holds a BA (Summa cum laude) from the Arizona State University (US) in Art History and and AA (Highest Hons) in Technical Theatre from Foothill College (US). Howe's most recent shows include Things that were About to be Lost (London), Invitation Au Voyage (Online), SW11 Windows (London), Solo Exhibit (London) (all 2021), and a solo piece exhibited at the Aspen Art Museum in 2020 (now in private collection). Howe's work is represented non-exclusively by Riana Raouna Gallery. (Cyprus)