Wolf Howard | |
---|---|
Born | 7 April 1968 56) | (age
Nationality | British |
Education | No formal art training |
Known for | Drums, painting, photography |
Movement | Stuckism (1999–2006) |
Wolf Howard (born 7 April 1968) [1] is an English artist, poet and filmmaker living in Rochester, Kent and was a founder member of the Stuckists art group. [2] He is also a drummer who has played in garage and punk bands, currently as a member of The Musicians of the British Empire (MBE's) with Billy Childish.
Simon 'Wolf' Howard was born in Strood, Kent and attended Mid-Kent College for O-levels, where he "doesn't think he got any but always tells people he got two". [2] In 1986 he began drumming, having taught himself, and has continued to do so ever since. [2] From 1987 for 15 years he was on the dole, except for a total of two periods of two months, one day and half-an-hour, when he was respectively sweeping an ironmonger's warehouse floor, sweeping a neon light warehouse floor, picking apples and working in a frozen shepherds-pie factory. [2] He decided against going to art college on the basis that it would "worsen himself". [2] He lives in Chatham, where he works as a volunteer in an Oxfam shop. [2]
Wolf Howard has played drums in many bands. The most important are (in chronological order) The Daggermen, The James Taylor Quartet, The Prime Movers, The Solarflares, Dodsons Dogs and The Buff Medways. His drumming is "louder than a self-propelled Howitzer." [3]
Howard was one of the 13 original founder members of the Stuckists, a pro-figurative painting, anti-conceptual art group, co-founded by Childish and Charles Thomson in 1999. [1] Howard exhibited in group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian (2004) at the Walker Art Gallery for the Liverpool Biennial [2] and Go West at Spectrum London (2006). [4] He left the group in 2006 to pursue a solo career.
He paints bold figurative images in a simple, vigorous, impasto style. This has incurred criticism for its apparent naivety. Howard has stated that his finished result only comes about after hard work, which can involve scraping the paint back to the canvas up to ten times. [2]
He has explained a particular painting, Mrs Chippy: [2]
People have said do me, ‘What’s the point in painting a cat? My five-year-old daughter could do that.’ Yes, she could, but would it be a cat that had the look in its eyes that conveyed to you that it was about to be shot? That’s the fate that befell Mrs Chippy during one of the greatest survival adventures ever—Ernest Shackleton’s voyage to the Antarctic in 1914 on the ship Endurance —shown in the background of the painting, stuck in the ice, as the crew drag the small open boat which later accomplished an 850-mile rescue journey through sixty-foot waves. That’s the difference between my cat and a five-year-old’s. … I also paint cats where there is no difference.
In Aesthetica magazine, Abby Jackson contrasted the different responses of Howard and Luc Tuymans to the subject of 9/11: "Tuymans chooses to avoid his subject matter, whereas Howard, as a Stuckist, approaches his subject head on." [5]
Wolf Howard is a member of the Stuckism Photography group and takes pinhole photographs. [6] He uses a light-proof wooden box 4" square with a fixed-size pinhole in the front. Photographic paper is placed at the back of the box. There is no lens and no viewfinder, so he estimates the aim of the camera. A wooden slider allows light into the box for an exposure which is between 40 seconds and 5 minutes. The camera is placed inside a light-proof bag to replace the photographic paper. [7]
He develops a negative print (in his bathroom) and makes the final positive print by placing another sheet of photographic paper under the negative with a 5-second exposure under a light bulb. The whole process requires estimation throughout and he "faces many disappointments in his darkroom. The hard work will eventually pay off." [7]
He describes his motivation:
An exhibition of his work, The Pinhole Photographs of a Gifted Gentleman Amateur, was held at the Stuckism International Gallery in 2003 as part of Alternative Arts Photomonth. [8] He was one of the four Stuckist Photographers showing work at the Lady Lever Art Gallery during the 2004 Liverpool Biennial. [9] Jesse Richards wrote in a review of the show, "Wolf Howard's pinhole photographs of a pocket watch, a trench cap, and his friend Billy Childish are beautiful haunting images that seem to be from a world long gone by. I've really never seen anything like it." [10]
Stuckism is an international art movement founded in 1999 by Billy Childish and Charles Thomson to promote figurative painting as opposed to conceptual art. By May 2017, the initial group of 13 British artists had expanded to 236 groups in 52 countries.
Remodernism is an artistic and philosophical movement aimed at reviving aspects of modernism, particularly in its early form, in a manner that both follows after and contrasts against postmodernism. The movement was initiated in 2000 by stuckists Billy Childish and Charles Thomson, with a manifesto, Remodernism in an attempt to introduce a period of new "spirituality" into art, culture and society to replace postmodernism, which they said was cynical and spiritually bankrupt. In 2002, a remodernism art show in Albuquerque was accompanied by an essay from University of California, Berkeley art professor, Kevin Radley. Adherents of remodernism advocate it as a forward and radical, not reactionary, impetus.
Billy Childish is an English painter, author, poet, photographer, film maker, singer, and guitarist. Since the late 1970s, Childish has been prolific in creating music, writing, and visual art. He has led and played in bands including the Thee Milkshakes, Thee Headcoats, and the Musicians of the British Empire, primarily working in the genres of garage rock, punk, and surf, and releasing more than 100 albums.
Charles Thomson is an English artist, poet and photographer. In the early 1980s he was a member of The Medway Poets. In 1999 he named and co-founded the Stuckists art movement with Billy Childish. He has curated Stuckist shows, organised demonstrations against the Turner Prize, run an art gallery, stood for parliament and reported Charles Saatchi to the OFT. He is frequently quoted in the media as an opponent of conceptual art. He was briefly married to artist Stella Vine.
William Lewis is an English artist, story-teller, poet and mythographer. He was a founder-member of The Medway Poets and of the Stuckists art group.
Sexton Ming is a British artist, poet and musician who was a founding member of The Medway Poets (1979) and Stuckism art movement (1999).
Philip Absolon is a British artist and a founder member of the Stuckists art group, exhibiting in the group shows, including The Stuckists Punk Victorian at the Walker Art Gallery in 2004, and taking part in Stuckist demonstrations against the Turner Prize. He has had long-term unemployment problems, depicted in his work with imagery of skeletons; his other main subject is cats, which he studies and depicts in motion.
Joe Machine is an English artist, poet and writer. He is a founding member of the Stuckists art group.
Jesse Beau Richards is a painter, filmmaker and photographer from New Haven, Connecticut and was affiliated with the international movement Stuckism. He has been described as "one of the most provocative names in American underground culture," and "the father of remodernist cinema."
The Stuckists Punk Victorian was the first national gallery exhibition of Stuckist art. It was held at the Walker Art Gallery and Lady Lever Art Gallery in Liverpool from 18 September 2004 to 20 February 2005 and was part of the 2004 Liverpool Biennial.
Ella Guru is an American painter and musician living in Hastings, East Sussex, England. She was a member of Mambo Taxi and the Voodoo Queens. In 1999, she became one of the founding members of the Stuckist art movement.
Eamon Everall is an English artist and educator. He was one of the 12 founder members of the Stuckists art group. He paints in a "neo-cubist" style, with subjects from life worked on over a long period.
Rachel Jordan is a British artist and has been a frequent guest exhibitor with the Stuckists. For Stuckist shows she created satirical figurative paintings; however, her main body of work is abstract paintings and drawings, alluding to cellular forms.
The Stuckism art movement was started in London in 1999 to promote figurative painting and oppose conceptual art. This was mentioned in the United States media, but the first Stuckist presence in US was not until the following year, when former installation artist, Susan Constanse, founded a Pittsburgh chapter.
Stuckist photographers develop the values of the Stuckism art painting movement into film and photography. Some of them are in a group called the Stuckist Photographers.
Mrs Chippy was a male ship's cat who accompanied Sir Ernest Shackleton's Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition of 1914–1917.
Rémy Noë, is a British painter, a member of the international art movement Stuckism and co-founder of the Maidstone Stuckists.
Abby Jackson is a British artist, Stuckist painter, writer and art activist.
The Stuckism International Gallery was the gallery of the Stuckist art movement. It was open from 2002 to 2005 in Shoreditch, and was run by Charles Thomson, the co-founder of Stuckism. It was launched by a procession carrying a coffin marked "The death of conceptual art" to the neighbouring White Cube gallery.