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Artist Statement:
Painting is changing. The idea
of a particular “ism” or
school is reminiscent of a
flat soft drink. I take
several of these historical
ideologies and put them in a
blender. I serve up an
explosive, visual 190 proof
margarita (everclear, not
tequila) that is excessive and
ambitious. It is a hedonistic,
long pour that might splash
everywhere. (You’re in trouble
if you have a paper cut.)
The goal is a reaction with
every sip from the
fishbowl-sized glass.
One special ingredient in this
recipe is the narrative
cartoon. It is born out of the
abstract gesture in a twisted,
unstable way. When the blender
stops, there will be bits and
pieces strewn all over the
place. It is a battle of epic
proportions with a
multi-pronged attack and a
slight tickle.
This cocktail is extremely
potent because many of its
constituents contrast. They
are so wrong together that
they start to seem right,
combining to create a hostile
and humorous expression. It
is like laughing while taking
a cold shower. There are no
baby-sips. You gulp it down
and brace yourself for the
brain-freeze.
I came to this concoction
scuffling through the liquor
cabinets ...
Further Information
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Artist Exhibitions:
EXHIBITIONS
2008
Art Museum of Southeast Texas;
solo exhibition; Beaumont,
Texas
McMurtrey Gallery; “In my
mind, you’re inflatable” solo
exhibition; Houston, Texas
Artist-in-residence group
exhibition; McColl Center for
Visual Art; Charlotte, North
Carolina
American University;
“Multiplicitocracy” group
exhibition; Washington, D.C.
2007
Camp Marfa; Marfa, Texas
Gerald ...
Further Information
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Artist Galleries:
http://www.mcmurtreygallery.com
contact Roni McMurtrey
http://www.gpgallery.com/galler
ies/view/2
contact Karen Fedri...
Further Information
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Collections:
Coming Soon!
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Commissions:
Coming Soon!
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Reviews for Howard Sherman:
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Feb. 5, 2008, 12:09PM
ART
Urban flair
Howard Sherman exhibit mixes high art with low culture to an intriguing effect
By DOUGLAS BRITT
Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
The paintings in Howard Sherman's exhibition at McMurtrey Gallery, In my mind, you're inflatable,
rely heavily on graffiti in that they incorporate spray paint and often have a vandalized quality to
them. Some of the more dissonant images look like turf battles between warring painters whose
gestures, drips and spatters encroach on each other's territory.
But they also involve graffiti in the sense that the critic Robert Hughes, in 1994, used the word to
describe what he found in Cy Twombly's scrawled paintings — something "more muted and pastoral:
harmless scratches, small obscenities, chalk on Roman distemper."
Like Twombly and any number of neoexpressionists, Sherman mixes high modernism and low culture
in his paintings. You wouldn't be surprised to find one of his doodles on a bathroom stall. But while,
in Twombly's case, you might need to brush up on ancient Mediterranean history to understand some
of his titles, with Sherman you're better off typing keywords into the search field on
urbandictionary.com.
The paintings' broad themes deal with various manifestations of sex and consumerism set against a blighted abstract cityscape. Sherman
keeps the figuration enigmatic, so it's difficult to discern what, if any, message or meaning he ascribes to them. Depending on where your
mind is, the cartoon-doodled body parts, syringes and teeth that insistently lurk among the colorful brushstrokes, drips and spatters may
register as purely formal elements that help anchor Sherman's compositions or send you in the direction titles such as Paralytic Hooker
inevitably point.
Of course, finding a gold tooth in a painting and realizing it belongs to the pimp in Gold Rolex for a Strong Pimp Hand is one thing; deciding
what Sherman has to say about pimps is another.
I'm not sure how crucial it is that we know. Sherman, who drew a syndicated comic strip from 1993 to 2001 before earning a master's
degree from the University of North Texas in 2006, may simply be using his own history as a starting point for his paintings, or perhaps he's
just listening to hip-hop while he creates them.
At any rate, while deciphering the figurative elements is one of the pleasures of looking at this brash, energetic work, a bigger one is seeing
how Sherman integrates them into a rich, abstract painterly vocabulary.
In Topical Growth Hormone, areas of bare canvas enliven an image dominated by dark purples, blacks and fiery yellows. Crude and elegant
lines mingle with what look like collaged shards of painted canvas but are, in fact, just paint. The composition is divided by hard edges whose
boundaries are then violated by a sprayed, thick squiggle, under which smudgy whites partly obscure earlier traces of the painting's history.
Something similar happens in the more nocturnal Donkey Punching Bastards, an unabashedly lovely painting despite its title. In all the show's
pieces, you get the sense that Sherman is throwing everything he's got at the paintings, but in these two images, the result seems
effortlessly improvised.
Instructions for Base Tanning, the only monochrome in the show, evokes Twombly's erased blackboard paintings, but with erotic lines drawn
in, smeared out and drawn in again with a joyful energy that feels masterfully choreographed.
I'd be pleased to see several paintings in this important show enter a local museum's collection, but none more so than Gold Cards Buy Gold
Crowns, in which Sherman's marks, scrapes and erasures conspire to give the image a mysterious spatial and temporal depth. The extensive
use of white lets the composition breathe, and Sherman's pentimenti reveals evidence of the painting's earlier stages while suggesting
presences beneath a surface you can't help peering through. The painted shards not only activate the space but positively dance while two de
Kooning-like whiplash lines zigzag across the lower right quadrant of the canvas. One line is the other's shadow, and the 3-D effect is
riveting. Pieces of trompe l'oeil duct tape, along with Sherman's restraint, hold everything together.
You can lose yourself in this painting. I hope to see it again this fall, when Sherman has his first solo museum exhibition at the Art Museum
of Southeast Texas in Beaumont, a show which, based on the evidence of this one, cries out for a road trip
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