ARTISTS
| Andy Howell’s roots are simple: skateboarding, surfing, drawing, painting, punk rock, hip hop. He grew up immersed in the 80’s Virginia and DC punk scenes, making 'zines, travelling up and down the east coast for skate contests and building ramps with his friends in every place they could find. Late nights of snaking wood and nails and mornings of cutting transitions always led to poorly lit sessions late the next night. An adrenaline junkie from the word go, he just wanted to move fast, whether on board, with brush, or spraycan. Skateboarding and art became addictions, and soon everything else fell victim. Howell turned pro skateboarder in ’89, and became an influence in the style of street skating that would set the tone for the next 10 years. His skateboarding philosophy was like that of his artwork: do something different, stretch the boundaries, make a statement. Howell’s skateboarding and creative work were all by-products of the prevalent punk attitude and the observations he made of the world around him. Howell's obsession with line meshed with his love of animation, cartoons, and comics while he was still a teenager, and his ongoing exploration of the two has produced a wide range of tangents including graffiti, tribal, and folk influenced work. Once described by London's The FACE Magazine as "Disney on Drugs", his work pokes a political stick at man's obsessions and excesses, confining his subjects to the interrogations room of his imagination, and barely giving them breathing room on the canvas. He paints “transcendental moments,” which he describes as “the actual moments when the layman transcends daily mediocrity, whether it be in discovery, triumph, or escape.” He works in sizes ranging from 4”x 6” to 24’x10’ and paints on anything from found doors and tabletops to electrical boxes on the street to skateboard decks to canvas and paper. Howell prefers mixed media, “anything fast, glue, spraymount, tape, acrylic, spraypaint, pen and ink, fingers, anything loose and fast.” "In all my endeavors, striving to push beyond society's limitations, I have always felt people wanted to pidgeon hole me into a category or definition, putting me into an uncomfortable box. That feeling often comes across in my work, as well as its converse, complete freedom, which has also been a major voice. My influences at the moment range from early native american art to space age modern design, which has been resulting in pieces that I can only describe as my vision of humans in futuristic tribes." andyhowell.com |
