by Pete, 1992-1995

have never considered myself an expressionist. I have always tended toward work that is conceptual rather than emotional. Yet, my art is deeply personal because it reflects my choices. The decisions I make about subject matter, media, and presentation are about how I choose to make art, how I want my art to appear, about what I think my art should be.

Today's artists choose from art history, presenting their art in new, but not entirely unfamiliar, forms. The modern movements redefined the conventions of what was acceptable as art. Marcel Duchamp set a precedence for the artist's choice as art in itself, leaving few boundaries. With my latest works I have come to terms with my relationship to the conventions of creating art by concentrating initially on my own choices, the artist's choice. My choice of media is based upon my personal preference. The subject matter is from my own experiences. My presentation is intuitive.

I have felt compelled to complete "paintings" since I became an artist even thought drawing has been my chosen medium for some time. Almost all my work has referred in some way to my relationship to painting/art-making because "paintings" contain the essential ingredients of what I have learned defines art. My works, then, maintain the elements of painting and art that I choose to include while removing the main elements I do not. The works are all, in fact, large color pencil drawings exceeding four feet in their longest dimension.

Since moving to San Francisco, I have chosen my subject matter as it reflects my experiences as a gay man. The works in this series are intuitive attempts to record part of the "gay aesthetic" and define my role as a gay artist within the larger culture. I've chosen a vocabulary of images, combining popular notions of beauty with "gay" imagery and issues. For example, in "Sleeping satyr and dark flower" I presented a "homoerotic" classical male nude, against a background of a sunflower. In "Isn't it obvious," (not included in this on-line exhibit) a composite of some of my childhood photos is overlaid with a floral pattern. These works reflect subtle commentary on the notions of beauty and the definitions about homosexuality and homoeroticism.

Another common theme in my latest work is the combination of images and words. As a graphic designer and a amateur writer, I have come to appreciate the relationship between words and imagery both in helping to lead the viewer through the content of the art and as an opportunity to add another layer of meaning. Whether puns, ironic phrases, or plays on words involving the imagery itself (pansies, fruit), the words become both an important visual and conceptual component of the pieces.

The final element of my art is my intuitive approach to the creation of a piece. Often the final content is derived through completion rather than conception. As examples are my large flower pieces, like "Daisy (for Randall)". After finishing the first of these flower drawings, it occurred to me that cut flowers seemed an appropriate symbol for life in the age of AIDS. I have since added the names of people I knew who died of the disease to the titles.

Even though I have never considered myself an expressionist, my future work will continue to explore these personal issues in undoubtedly more expressive forms, as I elaborate on my established themes. My decisions about subject matter, media, and presentation will continue to be as important to me as the final work.

This on-line art show is my first one-person exhibit in over four years. My career as a multimedia designer has in many ways overcome my career as a fine artist. This on-line show is the first time that I have combined the two.

Peter Howells
January, 1996