Thinkspace Projects presents:

ARMANI HOWARD
Songs of Dawn

Opening Reception:
Saturday, May 6 from 6-10pm

On view May 6 – May 27, 2023 in Gallery II

Affording viewers the opportunity to view transitional phases through the mind and eyes of whimsical beings, Armani Howard’s Songs of Dawn captures growth in a remarkable way. Filling Thinkspace Projects’ Gallery II, Howard encourages a dialogue of mysticism–the emotional and physical conduit that occurs when a body has a new experience.

Creating a form of contemporary folklore, Howard reimagines his existence and experiences as a black body into a visually sizable body of work. Dream-like and at times bewildering, his work is expressive of narratives unbounded in time.

Hoping to aid future humans in navigating internal dialogue surrounding identity and heritage, Howard provides the space to question American traditions. His work, which is layered with compositions of abstract figuration, loose gestural marks, and an evocative usage of color, upholds the antecedents of the African American dialogue before him. He cross-examines the roles of memory, nostalgia, and folkloric narratives in the creation and preservation of identity. His nebulous, conceptually layered compositions depict an intersectional space between objective reality and the more speculative mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of life.

About Armani Howard
Armani Howard (b.1993, Chicago, Illinois) is an African American-Thai contemporary artist, working primarily in painting and drawing. His work explores the themes of preservation of identity, escapism, pop culture, self-discovery, mental health, and loss of innocence. Howard’s paintings are often depicted with allegorical or symbolic features. The physical environments they inhabit are heavily abstracted and obscured, suggesting a realm outside of time in which dream life, memory, and imagination coexist with materiality.