Wednesday, September 13, 2023

Jesse Howard

Artist

"America Unrest Soul"

“In the past several years I have embodied a particular moment in time, sourced from media imagery of outrage and protest. I am sensitive as well as an observer of African-American portrayal by a white-centric media. My observations coupled with my studies within my community I’m driven to create a distinctive figure poised between portraiture and social commentary. My figures are often solitary and distorted. They speak to being disenfranchised or homeless, as being barely visible. At times, the faces of my esthetics are formally powerful, beautiful, and charged with a spark of empathic intensity that which commands my audience’s attention. The portraits of African-American men in my view exist in a singular world—human and ancestral, living and sculpted—with an immediacy and economy. I use lines often found in contemporary graphics, working in tandem with gray and black washes, suggesting ancient stone.”

Jesse Howard received his Bachelor of Science Degree from Ball State University. His artwork is included in permanent collections at the Depaul University Art Museum, Beloit College, Minnesota Museum of American Art and Rutgers University. He has received numerous awards and grants including the Grand Prize at the Purdue University National Drawing Exhibition Drawing Resurfaced II, First Place at 58th Annual Beloit & Vicinity Exhibition, and the Ragdale Foun- dation Residency Scholastic Award.

Jesse recently exhibited at EXPO CHICAGO 23 with Bert Green Fine Art Gallery and is a featured artist in The Color of Art Documentary, directed by David Weatherby. This film won a Black Excellence Award in the category of Film Di- rector at the African American Arts Alliance of Chicago event hosted at the Black Ensemble Theater.