ARMANI HOWARD

‘River Bed (2022)’, is a new painting created for this exhibition hat explores the relationship between the ancestral spirit realm and the sea; or perhaps more specifically water as spirit and life force.  

Armani Howard is an African American-Thai contemporary artist, working primarily in painting and drawing. His work explores themes of identity preservation, escapism, pop culture, self-discovery, mental health, and loss of innocence. The direction of reimagining his existence and experiences as a Black body into a visually sizeable body of work has become a form of contemporary folklore. Dream-like and at times bewildering, his work is expressive of narratives unbounded in time. He hopes this will help future bodies find their internal dialogue of identity and heritage while sustaining a self-supporting development. His work with its layered compositions of abstract figuration, loose gestural marks, and an evocative usage of color uphold the antecedents of the African American dialogue before him. At the same time, they allow the space to question American traditions.