Lanise Howard
Lanise Howard’s surreal figural compositions arise from a need to explore her thoughts and dreams and a desire to visually represent people like herself. She investigates colour, imagination, and the human form. The resulting works are psychologically rich studies of humanity that collapse the boundary between reality and the entirely new world that Howard imagines.
Lanise Howard.
For more of Howard’s artwork, please visit her website or her Instagram.
Howard was born in Southern California and lived in New York State. She is now based in Los Angeles, where she graduated from Otis College of Art and Design in 2020. The vivid aura of Los Angeles pulses through her artworks, and the landscapes she recalls from New York also permeate each piece. Both California and New York framed her view of the world.
However, she is inspired by much more than landscape. She also delves into the idea of the otherworldly, of how the human body and mind would feel when transported into an entirely different realm. Her subjects inhabit an analogous world, yet each of her paintings stands alone as a reflection of a distinct human emotion. Her hypnotic colour scheme magnifies the ethereality of her paintings. Yet a wide range of topics interests her, from ancient belief systems to the digitisation of our world to portraying her experiences as a woman of colour. Her process begins by ruminating on these ideas of interest and then translating them into sketches. Eventually, her spellbinding works of art become a reality.
The Emboldened One, 2022. 48 x 36 in. Oil on canvas. All images courtesy of the artist.
While interpreting these ideas, Howard’s professional practice has grown significantly since she started it in 2020. It now embodies her goal of conveying the stories and histories of people like herself and her own life. In terms of her artistic predecessors, Howard is particularly drawn to Renaissance painting, as well as Contemporary artists like Kerry James Marshall and Charles White.
Marshall and White are both known for figural representations of Black life in the United States and are considered crucial to American art history. When Howard began college, she began learning more about Black artists, who are often excluded from art historical education and the general Western canon. Howard admired how artists like Marshall and White boldly innovated in their compositions and representations of the human body. Her works bear this same innovation and artist-specific figural style.
The Folly of a Melancholy, 2023. 78 x 78 in. Oil on canvas.
Howard’s dreamlike sensibility is fully displayed in The Folly of a Melancholy (2023). This work evokes the melancholy of our time, brought on by rapidly changing and increasingly dire global circumstances. Each woman represents one of the three Graces, and each has a different disposition. The shades of pink convey a warmness set off by the psychologically-charged nature of the painting. The landscape is the first indication that there is more to this scene than three women standing: the swirling, transforming sky above the women foreshadows tumult and anxiety.
The women’s facial expressions also foreshadow the worry to come, except for the leftmost woman. She is a self-portrait of Howard, dancing freely without any worries, as she often enjoys doing. Her aloofness is the folly in the title, as she remains blissfully unaware of the apparent uneasiness surrounding her. The other two women, arranged with the first in a Rubensian pattern of bodies, betray the disquieting weight of their environment. Their faces outline the beginnings of concern.
The Intermediate, 2023. 30 x 24 in. Oil on canvas.
Howard’s work melds portraiture and landscape seamlessly, lending her subjects an interior world as complex as the scenes around them. Even when we cannot see their whole faces, such as in The Intermediate (2023), they succeed in their ability to tell stories with just their bodies.
The Intermediate applies a divergent compositional format, as Howard places the figure between two starkly disparate realities. The work recalls stories of Howard’s family members receiving visions from beyond and her own experiences with messages from otherworldly sources. This figure makes that experience literal, as she can communicate with the human world and the world beyond. Her hand grips the leaves to remind her of the tangible human world, yet she looks toward the stormy sky, signifying change and the world beyond.
Howard’s works take the viewer on a journey and draw from a wide variety of sources, ultimately allowing us to read these layers of inspiration and art historical sourcing directly into her art. She is currently working on a show with albertz benda in New York, where she will focus more on the male figure and interior scenes. She looks forward to continuing the rhythm she has found in her practice and cultivating freeness within her artistic expression.
They Became Like the Birds, 2022. 60 x 60 in. Oil on canvas.
Selected Exhibitions and Awards:
Solo Exhibitions
2022
And Then they Heard the Wind Seasons Gallery, Los Angeles, California
2021
In an Age of a (Simulation), Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, Florida
Chameleon; to be of an Ambiguous Origin, Monti8, Latina, Italy
2018
Cycles of Time, Sola Contemporary, Los Angeles, California
Group Exhibitions
2022
Confluence of Coastal Creativity, albertz benda, Los Angeles, California
Hospitality Suite, Mindy Solomon Gallery, Miami, Florida
Power of Femininity, Kutlesa Gallery, Goldau, Switzerland
Zoom In, Prior Art Space, Berlin, Germany
2021
Breakfast in America, Seasons Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Varsity Blues, Allouche Gallery, New York, New York
The Fact of Blackness, Dominique Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Black Voices: Friend of my Mind, Ross Sutton Gallery, New York, New York
2020
Show Me the Signs, Blum and Poe, Los Angeles, California
Masterpiece: the Inaugural Show, Band of Vices Gallery, Los Angeles, California
Reciprocity: Lost Narratives, New Voices, LA Art Share, Los Angeles, California
2019
Made in California, Brea Art Museum Gallery, Brea, California
Selected Awards
2019
Women Painters West Award
AXA Award Finalist
Gabriella Hetu
Emerging Artists Co-Editor, MADE IN BED