Japhet Bates Collective is pleased to announce Floral Arrangements, a solo exhibition by American artist Catherine Howe. An opening reception will be held on October 22nd, 5:00 - 8:00 PM at our new gallery. The exhibition will be on view through November 21, 2025.
Art historical references: early Modernism, biomorphic abstraction, Surrealism, Abstract
Expressionism, transcendentalism, color field painting, Pattern and Decoration movement,
Feminism.
Process:
I almost never share the details of my process or specific materials/ techniques, because I
hope the work to stay mysterious and truly be greater than the sum of its parts in an alchemical spirit.
The work may start in the spirit of expressionism (think Jackson Pollock: American, postwar). However, there is a different attitude. It is a reconsideration, adding an overlay of a sophisticated feminine beauty that is neither a critique or a negation of the authentic expression underneath, but pushes the work into a different realm completely. Wildly lyrical, but considered at the same time- they display a complicated beauty: a fusion of passion and restraint.
Process:
My work results from a series of actions (see “action painting”). Harold Rosenberg said a
painting is “an arena and which to act”. The idea here is that the canvas is a space for the painter to act upon, rather than a surface to reproduce an image. The resulting work is the product of the encounter between the painter and the canvas, rather than merely a preconceived image.
I don’t conceive of my work as being a picture or an image.The work is built up in layers, each
layer, resulting from a separate often full- body,“action”, a separate session of painting. Some of these actions are very slow and deliberate, such as applying the glue and the resulting metal leafs: copper, gold, aluminum, white/black foil. Other moments require swift, decisive and spontaneous action, such as painting with the resinous acrylic paint on top of the many- layered prepared field. As the piece is built up, each separate action- filled layer has a rhyme and reason, a strategy of its own and they’re all different. As I use clear acrylic mediums at certain points in the process, I have the equivalent of an invisible painting or all the imagery is there, but it cannot be seen yet. It will be revealed when I apply additional materials. As in alchemy, the results are not merely the sum of the parts, but something different; hopefully something greater.
Each piece begins with several layers of custom mixed acrylic paint. These paints are
sometimes made out of powdered iridescent mica and other mineral pigments combined with acrylic mediums to control the sheen and the consistency. The light will be refracted as the viewer moves from side to side creating iridescence and color shifts they cannot be made any other way.
As the light is shifting or the viewer moves, the interference pigment changes from one color to its opposite on the color wheel, this is very subtle in my work as I only use a small amount of pigment in each layer and sometimes mix other colors in with it to mitigate, the hue to create something unique.
Other more color- saturated works start with fields made of matte acrylics and “luminous”
pigments combined with pure color under- painting. The resultant hue is created from this built up combination rather than pre-mixing a color on a pallet.
While the initial layer of the field is still wet, I sometimes create an incised, drawing slicing into the wet paint with a silicone tool that will remain at the bottom of the painting. These ghostly lines resemble traces of pollen or birds suspended in the air and provide an illusion of depth in the finished work.
The most decisive session, where the imagery is put down:
This originates with a pour of a custom- mixed resinous acrylic medium that allows for pouring and fluid application, as well as allowing a certain amount of texture and relief to remain on the surface. It has to be exactly right or the imagery will slide right off the canvas. All of this happens with the painting in a horizontal position to allow for the maximum control of the pour. Creating images with poured acrylic medium is both thrilling and demanding in that there’s very little that can be changed in the end. So, I’ve shifted from a very slow building up to a very quick laying down. After the pour,I evaluate the composition and decide which brushes tools, squeegees, scrapers, etc. I will employ, to create the imagery. This is done from an arsenal of tools laid out before- hand, much the way a chef prepares their work area before commencing an elaborate dish. Guided by the pour and my intentions for the peace, I create botanical floral images, using silicone scrapers and brushes amongst other handmade tools. I have a certain amount of control over this while there’s also chance elements that arise as the paint continues to spread and move on its own volition.
Even gravity participates. Forces of nature act upon the piece and I must continually reevaluate my own movements in accordance with this phenomenon.
The third event or action, after the second layer of relief painting (the imagery) has dried, is the application of the metal leaf. I sometimes use several colors of leaf on each painting. The glue must be applied very carefully with tiny brushes to articulate exactly where the leaf will go. The leaf will be applied, in the traditional manner, after this is dry.
The metal leaf in this case consists of very, very thin pieces of aluminum, or copper, or alloy that is sometimes tinted to create other colors. The leafing creates an unusual, perhaps even
unnatural finish and color for the botanical imagery. It refers back to decorative techniques and motifs, and I very much enjoy the tension between the seriousness of the abstracted imagery and the sincere and robustly -gestural effort on my part, against the playfulness of the decorative finishes.
By creating flower imagery that is not in the expected natural colors of the garden, the content is shifted and made more complex. I am responding to nature, but imposing upon it, my own desires, fears, hopes, etc., transposing it into more symbolic, esoteric, terrain.
In some pieces, after the leafing is complete, a gestural drawing is done with a clear, resinous gel that I apply from squirt bottles in a fluid, yet controlled manner. While this drawing is still wet, I pour on hundreds of tiny glass beads in metallic tones that correspond to the overall color strategy of the painting. The drawing is thus revealed.
The final session is not glamorous. It involves using a very clean vacuum attachment to sweep off all the residual leaf material and stray glass beads, and spot varnishing, leaving the finished piece, a mysterious conglomeration of perhaps strange but heartfelt actions inspired by nature but pulled out of my own interior landscape.
