BiographyPast Exhibitions
Available Works
9 Mar - 23 Apr 2005
The majority of people can't be shocked … so if it shocks anybody it's usually because their brain has been stimulated … but it's not the main ingredient in the work.
Neale Howells is one of very few painters whose work still excites the stongest emotions in people. Amongst artists he is possibly the only one in the last thirty years to have earned the double laurels of suffering not one, but two exhibitions to be closed down before they had a chance to open. And yet the barely legible scrawls that run through his paintings and have upset some Councils usually originate in nothing more sinister than snatches of conversation from the edited contents of a Radio Wales phone-in or the afternoon play on Radio 4. In Howell's work they provide a visual rhythm to the painting, a meaningless, background noise that is later obliterated by drips of paint or the outline of a figure.
The work is not graffiti because it never appears to be a single person's message. It is the accumulation of graffiti: layers of messages jostling for space, words that have been scratched out and tiny pencil doodles filling the gaps. Sometimes a huge aerosol figure or a sprayed tag will be the final layer of a painting that seems to represent decades of abuse but shares the same fascinating beauty you find lifting the lid of an old school desk.
Howells is surprisingly meticulous about his painting. The work may give the appearance of being created without thought but in reality he keeps a tight control over the many disparate elements that weave their way through each picture. You cannot describe chaos by being chaotic any more than you can describe fear by screaming and the works' haphazard beauty is a hard-won battle. Occasionally visitors to his studio feel compelled to have a go themselves and Neale, being the good-natured person he is, readily hands over a brush. Yet it always ends in him repainting the panel. To convey the sort of random accumulation of marks so convincingly and on such a huge scale requires a disciplined vision and an incredible delicacy of touch. The two characteristics one would least expect to discover on first coming across Howells's work.
For more information please contact Anthea Peers
020 7351 4818 anthea@jmlondon.com
