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Lenore Howard is a painter of quite remarkable images: powerful, beautiful, sensual, dramatic and challenging. She works in the Surreal genre in which the artist paints thought rather than known reality, creating a bridge to a different kind of existence where logic and reason are displaced.Narrative is present in these works but is seen in a context of dreamlike discontinuity where unfettered imagination takes over while portraying some of the dysfunctional aspects of the human condition.These are paintings about people, and frequently about relationships in conflict. To dismiss them as mere decoration is to make a serious mistake. Howard has developed her own visual language and system of symbols which often provide a key to her work, although even these may be subject to change.Unlike much that we term as 'art', these paintings will never become 'wallpaper'. People often buy paintings because they suit a certain spot on the wall, only to have them fit so well that after a few weeks they may never see them again. Not so Howard's paintings; they will be there everyday, to converse with, to re-examine and to question.When I first saw Howard's work it had an enormous and profound effect on me. And it still does. Much good art holds up the mirror to the age that produced it; it reflects current culture, its joys and its sorrows, and is a permanent record of people's concerns and triumphs. In this regard our artists are also our historians. Their work is not language specific and freely crosses language barriers and cultural divides. And in saying this, I am describing what happens in Howard's work.Lenore Howard has much to say and what a personal and compelling way she has chosen to say it.
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- Review by Robert NelsonGary Shead, Australian Galleries, 35 Derby Street, Collingwood, until September 8.Figures in the Landscape, Gallery 101, 101 Collins Street, until August 31............"Another artist who has an ambiguously satirical outlook on the world is Lenore Howard, whose Street echoes are part of a group show Figures in the landscape, curated by Dianna Gold. Her paintings contain imaginatively juxtaposed elements, mostly involving the figure and sometimes strangely erotic, as with The game of secrets in which a woman is about to use her skipping rope but standing too close to the wall, upon which she casts a powerful shadow.Howard's work doesn't deal with a grand single metaphor, as Shead's does, but a host of bizarre ambiguities....."
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Trinity Beach artist Lenore Howard has had four major works selected by a gallery, Gallery 101, in Melbourne, for inclusion in the prestigious Melbourne Art Fair 2002, running until October 6.She will be attending this bi-annual art fair which has gained a considerable reputation over the years as presenting the best contemporary visual work on offer by mainstream galleries.A vigorous selection criteria and exhibition rules ensure a high standard of entries and this five-day, premier event, considered on of Australia's most important, attracts thousands of visitors.These include experienced collectors and those who are simply interested in keeping abreast of current art experiences.While most of the 800 plus artists exhibiting are from Australia, there also will be participants from New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Europe and North America.Lenore's work was selected for inclusion after a successful show at Gallery 101 in 2001. Earlier this year, she was chosen, along with Ed Koumans and Geoff Dixon, to work with local schools and present a body of work, under the direction of Cairns Regional Galley's public programs manager, Paul Brinkman, for an exhibition entitled Surrealistic.Her work has been exhibited in most of the capital cities of Australia and also group exhibitions in London, Paris and New York.
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