Heidi Howard

Heidi Howard (born 1986) is an American painter born, raised, and currently based in Queens, New York. They received a BA from Sarah Lawrence College, and an MFA from Columbia University. Howards makes portraits; they paint, whenever possible, with the sitter in the room. Their process and style changes with each person, reflecting the color feelings of both Howard and the sitter, their shared aesthetics, and images that emerge over the course of the sitting. Megan Garwood described Howard's first solo exhibition “Painting for Love” (2008) as a group of portraits that "echo the intimate style of Elizabeth Peyton, rendering the personalities of Howard’s subjects. However, unlike the most-recognizable motif in Peyton’s work, a close depiction of the face, Howard juxtaposes her (sic) subject against a Matisse-pattern smoothly applied with a color palette that could have been mixed by David Hockney, himself." Howard's first exhibition at Nancy Margolis "Portrait and Dream" was noticed by Kate Leibman in The Brooklyn Rail for its “use of pattern and color as a striking departure from the work of her contemporaries.”
In 2018, Howard painted a 40 foot high by 100 foot long portrait of their mother Liz Phillips in the atrium of the Queens ...

2014 Columbia University, NY, NY, MFA, Visual Arts

2008 Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, NY, BA, Liberal Arts

Solo Exhibitions
2024 “Colors make us do vibrant deeds!” The Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University, New York, NY
2022 “Exchange Place Portraits” Jersey City, NJ
2020 “HEIDI HOWARD” One River School, Englewood, NJ
2019 “Like Water For Faces” Continuo, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
2019 “Roots Run Gold to Pink” Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA
2017 “Woven Traits” Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY
2015 “Portrait and Dream” Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY
2011 “Painting for Love” Con Artist Gallery, New York, NY

Two-Person Exhibitions
2027 “Conversations with the Earth: Esteban Cabeza de Baca + Heidi Howard” Harwood Museum, Taos, NM
2024 “Night & Dreams” David B. Smith Gallery, Denver CO
2023 “Light from Water: Heidi Howard and Esteban Cabeza de Baca with Liz Phillips” Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Bronx, NY, curated by Gabriel de Guzman and Rachel Guggelburger
2018-20 “Heidi Howard and Liz Phillips: Relative Fields in a Garden” Queens Museum, Queens, NY, curated by Sophia Marisa Lucas and Baseera Khan
2019 “Heidi Howard and Katy Cowan: Something of a body, of a tempo” et al. gallery, San Francisco, CA
2017 “Esteban Cabeza de Baca and Heidi Howard: Verano” Gaa Gallery, Wellfleet, MA

Performanc...