Tom Howse

Transversing Obsolescence , 2023 Acrylic on linen 170 x 130 cm 66 7/8 x 51 1/8 in The figurative scenes that unfold in the paintings of Tom Howse travel within and around the border between perceived reality and fiction. Exploring components of folklore and myth, the familiar and the unknown, the paintings compose fusions of alternate times, places, and relationships. The appearing figures take the form of people, animals, and hybrids in interior spaces of the home, prehistoric landscapes, forests, or cultivated gardens. Often gathered in groups engaged in an unknown activity, walking across and out of the perimeter of the frame or staring back at the viewer, each person and animal carries the same smile and facial expression. What at first might appear calm and idyllic slowly creeps into a state of the weary as one begins to notice distorted proportions of human bodies, where extended arms, or legs attached to a head without a torso emerge. Transparent figures, snails with human legs wearing trousers, pigeons and human heads that appear through the surface of a wooden plank - seemingly unbothered, the figures in this pictorial world consistently proceed to smile. Derived from a need embedded across time, borders, and space, Tom Howse investigates a desire for comprehension, comfort, and normality as it moves in and out of our consciousness. As scenes unfold through the window of a dining room, a swamp of prehistoric dimensions, or a cultivated landscape, Howse begins to distort and reconfigure the proposed logic of our expectations. By twisting the proportions, perspectives, and dimensions of the depicted, the known is extended into the realm of fiction, which yet again entails a capacity to transcend back into reality. Tom Howse (b. 1988, Chester) recieved a BA in fine art painting from the Wimbledon College of Arts in 2011 and was shortlisted for the Prunella Clough Painting Award (2011) and the Catlin Art Prize (2012). Howse's work, The Thunderous Silence of Your Presence, won a John Moores Painting Prize in 2018 and was exhibited in the prize exhibition at the Walker Art Gallery. om Howse has been the subject of solo exhibitions at Duarte Sequeira, Braga and Seoul; Galleri Opdahl, Norway; No.9 Cork Street Gallery, London; LINSEED Projects, Shanghai; Lychee One, London; Rod Barton Gallery, London; and Tanja Pol Galerie, Munich. He has also participated in numerous group exhibitions at Alexander Berggruen, NY; PM/AM Gallery, London; Saatchi Gallery, London; Galleri Kant, Copenhagen; Walker Art Gallery, Liverpool; J Hammond Projects, London; and Regent's Park underground, London.