Al Howash I Drawing

I was born in 1964 into an artistic family in the UK and have since lived and worked for 20 years or more as a designer/artist in the exotically heady and dusty atmosphere of the Middle East. In 2003 I took up painting in soft pastel, the best material to reflect the often hazy, humid conditions, and spent the next 11 years developing my work and seeking exposure. A move to Cyprus for a year gave me the opportunity to exhibit to a new audience and expand my ideas and themes which were free to flow in the relaxing atmosphere of the beautiful Mediterranean scenery and much kinder climate. In 2012, I returned to the UK where I have been lucky to live and continue to work firstly in Dorset and now in Somerset . Naturalism, minimalism and organic rhythms and patterns are revealed in often monochromatic, introspective works. A love of contemporary abstract ceramics informs my method of working. Using mostly soft pastel, I work into the surface directly with my hands. It is an intimate and often quite physical process that is at once spontaneous and then controlled . Whilst my paintings can loosely be described as 'landscape', memories, ideas and experiences are all woven into semi-abstract planes and bands of resonant colour and texture. Each new piece reveals more than merely shifting patterns of nature; duality, humanity and the perpetual flux of existence emerge for consideration.