Project: Joe Howe

White Columns is proud to present the New York solo debut exhibition by the Boston, MA-based artist Joe Howe (b. 1930). Now in his late 80s, Howe has been affiliated for more than forty years with Gateway Arts, a celebrated studio program in Brookline, MA that supports a community of artists living and working with disabilities.

Howe’s exhibition will focus on a group of his extraordinary, painted wood sculptures, produced during the past twenty-five years, juxtaposed with a group of more recent works in ceramic, and works on paper.

Howe’s painted wood sculptures resemble architectural models, suggesting much larger structures of habitable scale. Carefully assembled from found and scavenged off-cuts of wood, they are subsequently sanded and then painted in bold, largely monochromatic hues (salmon pinks, vivid reds, dark greens, etc.). Howe’s sculptures simultaneously invoke the formal dynamics of the modernist project and the ‘hobbyist’-like aesthetics evident in the work of artists such as Nancy Shaver or Vincent Fecteau. Howe’s abstract paintings and drawings employ bold planes of often contrasting colors to suggest a landscape-like space. Largely non-verbal, Howe typically signs these works by including his name (as either ‘Joe’ or ‘Joe Howe’) as a part of the image, a self-conscious process of ‘identification’ or ‘naming’ also evident in the early work of Robert Ryman or the more recent work of Mark Grotjahn.

Joe Howe’s work has been shown extensively at the Gateway Gallery at Gateway Arts, Brookline, MA; and in exhibitions at the Lincoln Gallery, Chestnut Hill, MA; The Mall, Chestnut Hill, MA: and in a solo exhibition at the Centre Street Café, Jamaica Plain, MA. This is Howe’s first solo exhibition outside of his native Massachusetts.

White Columns would like to thank and acknowledge all of the staff at Gateway Arts for their enthusiasm and support for this exhibition. We would also like to thank Beth Kantrowitz for introducing us to Joe’s work and Gateway Arts. To learn more about Gateway Arts visit: www.gatewayarts.org

Over the past decade White Columns has collaborated extensively with centers nationally and internationally that support communities of artists living and working with disabilities. We have developed exhibitions and projects in collaboration with artists affiliated with these centers including: Creative Growth, Oakland, CA: NIAD/National Institute for Art & Disabilities, Richmond, CA; Healing Arts Initiative, New York; Fountain House Gallery, New York; Project Ability, Glasgow, UK; and Visionaries + Voices, Cincinnati, OH; among others.

For more information contact: info@whitecolumns.org