Rachel Howard (born 1969, Easington, Co.Durham, UK) is best known for her abstract paintings in which layer upon layer of poured paint is built up, relying on gravity, precision and chance to determine the painting’s construction. Together these skins of acrylic and oil paint serve to create a ‘natural architecture’, both vertical and horizontal, that brings a depth and luminosity to these often large-scale paintings.

Howard employs the same technique in her figurative paintings, albeit less rigidly. In these smaller scale works the subject matter, described by the artist as ‘the beauty of tragedy’, holds equal importance with the physical presence of the paint on canvas. In one ‘suicide painting’ a dark image of a female figure is shown suspended from a taut rope; she hangs pulled by the same gravitational force that has determined the overall appearance of the work.

Howard graduated from Goldsmiths College in 1992 and has exhibited in many group exhibitions including ‘The Choice’, Exit Art, New York (1998), ‘Shimmering Substance’, The Cornerhouse, Manchester and Arnolfini Gallery, Bristol (2002), ‘Intuition/(imprecision)’ curated by Thomas Krens, Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria (2004) and ‘In the Darkest Hour There May Be Light: works from Damien Hirst’s murderme collection’, Serpentine Gallery, London (2006).

Recent solo exhibitions include ‘Tightrope’, Shaheen Modern and Contemporary Art, Ohio (2002), ‘Can’t Breathe Without You’, Anne Faggionato, London (2003), Guilty’, The Bohen Foundation, New York (2003-04),’Rachel Howard - New Paintings’, Gagosian Gallery, LA (2007), Fiction/Fear/Fact (2007), The Bohen Foundation, NY and this year has had two solo shows ‘How to Disappear Completely’, Haunch of Venison, London and ‘Rachel Howard, Invited by Phillipa Van Loon’, Museum Van Loon, Amsterdam. Howard lives and works in London.