IRINA HOWARD | Patterns Of Life

IRINA HOWARD | Patterns Of Life

Irina Howard is an accomplished visionary artist based in New York City, USA. She has carved a niche at the front of the contemporary art scene with her distinctive style and profound creativity. Howard has gained global recognition for her ability to evoke emotions and transport viewers to ethereal realms through her meticulously crafted and thought-provoking art.
She is a storyteller, a poetess of textures and forms, weaving emotions into every brush stroke. With an uncanny ability to capture the essence of the human experience, her artistic journey is a melodic symphony that resonates with the soul.
Drawing inspiration from organic forms and textures, personal experiences, and the depths of her imagination, Howard has crafted an original style that is truly her own. Her works often reflect a blend of realism, surrealism, fantasy, and abstraction, creating dreamlike narratives that touch hearts, sparks conversations, and transport viewers to realms beyond their imagination.

Irina Howard was born (1969) in Ukraine with a boundless imagination and an insatiable curiosity.
Her artistic talent bloomed at a tender age.
As a child, she immersed herself in the enchanting worlds of literature, arts, music, and nature. She found solace in their harmonious interplay and inspiration to overcome merciless traumatic events extended throughout her life. These influences shaped her unique artistic vision later in her mature age when she dedicated herself to a career in the arts. Howard earned a Fine Arts degree with honors from the City University of New York and a degree in Integrated Arts from the Yale Gordon College of Arts and Sciences in Maryland, USA. Critical acclaim for her work nurtured and encouraged her professional journey, setting the stage for her growth and willingness to explore new artistic frontiers.

In the vast tapestry of the art world, Irina Howard’s work shines brightly, weaving together beauty, imagination, and thought-provoking narratives. Her work has received extensive coverage in various magazines and art books. Notable publications include Aesthetica, the Art & Culture Magazine in the UK, Ideal Contemporary Aesthetics Magazine by Circle Foundation for the Arts in France, and Artists Magazine in the USA. Her work is also featured in books such as Important World Artists by Worldwide Artbooks in the USA(2022/23), Power of Creativity by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine in the UK, and Contemporary Celebrity Masters by Efetto Arte Fondazione in Italy.
Her artworks can be found on the cover of Artistonish Visual Arts Magazine in Canada and Magic of La Boheme Art Book in Germany (2023).

Howard has been the recipient of numerous awards and accolades. Her recent achievements include the Oscar of Visual Arts as a part of the Top 60 Masters of Contemporary Art 2022 /23 in New York City.
She also received the Collectors Choice Award from ArtTour International Magazine for her exceptional contribution to arts and culture (2022). Additionally, she was presented with the Voices of Tomorrow Art Award and The Faces of Peace Award for her aesthetic vision by Contemporary Art Curator Magazine (2022). Efetto Arte Foundation in Italy honored her with the International Prize Leonardo da Vinci (2023).

Howard claimed the third-place position in the Abstract/Experimental category for her outstanding artwork in the Artists Magazine’s Annual Art Competition (2022). Furthermore, Art Tour International Magazine acknowledged her as an Artist for a Green Planet, recognizing her exceptional dedication to raising environmental awareness (2022).

Yet, beyond the accolades and recognition, Irina remains steadfastly committed to the transformative power of art and continues to produce captivating artwork. Her talent has garnered recognition and appreciation from both art enthusiasts and collectors. Her recent solo exhibitions have occurred at esteemed venues such as the Art Expo Art Fair in New York City with Redwood Art Group and HMVC Gallery New York. Also, her work was presented at the Tokyo Tower Art Fair in Japan, Museu Maritim de Barcelona in Spain, Art San Diego with Artavita Art Gallery in California, USA, and Hamptons Fine Art Fair with Artifact Art Gallery in New York, USA. Her next exhibition is in September 2023 at the Grimandi Art Gallery in New York City.

As Irina Howard continues to explore the limitless depths of her artistic soul, she invites the viewers to embrace the beauty of the human experience. Her art becomes a sanctuary where dreams take flight, the ordinary is infused with the extraordinary, and melodies resonate eternally.

Patterns of Life | Collection in Progress

Making art is a profound process of personal discovery and development.
My work manifests beauty and seeks the inner creative significance to reach those who appreciate classical ideals while still being inspired by contemporary ways of speaking about human values. The visual language I developed offers an authentic experience expressed within a nonrepresentational form that reveals the invisible within the visible and helps me to create aesthetically pleasing, meaningful artwork.

Patterns of Life is my current series of artworks communicating life experiences and human values. I intentionally chose to work in a monochrome black-and-white color tone to demonstrate the contrast between the elements and the complexity of the experiences. Celebrating life by exploring the significance of each experience and investigating the good/ evil sides of it while embracing the light, hope, healing, and fulfillment of our souls is my goal with each artwork. I aim to create a space where viewers can connect with their emotions, find solace in the chaos of life, and rediscover the beauty in the world around them. Drawing inspiration from the natural world and human experiences, I create evocative and thought-provoking pieces giving physical form to conceptual ideas, bridging reality and imagination. My fascination with forms and textures takes me on a journey to reveal and interpret their meaning, unique purpose, and beauty in connection to human experiences.
In contrast, each artwork in “A New Beginning” is a symphony of vibrant hues that evoke certain emotions and thoughts, inviting viewers to interpret the deeper meanings behind the imagery. This collection is my testament to the power of art, demonstrating how it can inspire, heal, and ignite a renewed sense of wonder within us all.

I chose abstract as the most expressive style. It opens doors for curiosity, imagination, interpretation, and the flow of inner emotions. I use lines to create feelings; shapes, and forms to reflect on emotions, thoughts, and perceptions; texture to reveal experiences; and color tones to add contrast and reinforce a message through design and composition. The psychology of art elements imparts more meaningful design, influencing emotional responses. My favorites are circles and curved lines. I found them simple but, at the same time, very compelling. The circle is a line that never stops, represents “completeness,” and gives a sense of protection, friendship, femininity, community, and perfection. It naturally communicates positive emotions and builds a strong visual identity.

My processes combine research, thoughtful, conscious decisions, and spontaneous, intuitive solutions while creating compositions. When I sketch out every theme, I never know how it will look in the end. Taking steps to select the right, at-the-moment texture, color tones, and temperature, I follow my intuition and interpretation of the theme. I often feel stuck until a solution presents itself in any form. Pushing to get through, try different options, make the step forward, bringing me to the right results – it feels right and fits the concept. Complete interpretation may come in the development stage, be changed during the process, or after the work. Every time it amazes me how intuition works in mysterious ways to reach the final point. Everything begins with the central symbol for the theme, and other elements come with interpretation and visual design of putting them together, connecting, and balancing the composition. Each artwork is a different experience.
My favorite medium is oil paint because it provides an expressive ability and flexibility to create and achieve extraordinary results.
I work in tonal contrast from light to dark technique called chiaroscuro, which derived from the Italian word and emerged during the Italian Renaissance. It helps me to create the illusion of depth and powerful emotional attachment.
Moving from very defined objects and contours to ‘smoky’ transparent, blurring lines opens the ability to make a transition between light and shade and give a mysterious effect. Dry brush technique, smudging, and blending (sfumato)with layers of transparent color (glazing) give the painting an almost magical quality.
For sculpture, I enjoy working with clay. I also use sculpted metal wires, mesh wire, modeling compounds, and other materials to explore different textures.

My body of work expresses personal experiences, thoughts, spirituality, feelings, and philosophy in life. I believe in an awakened mind and a soul’s purpose when every life experience can be turned into a life-changing event. Therefore, I always strive to inspire hope and encourage positivity towards a bigger future, a healthier relationship, better solutions, restored trust, a more effective and enjoyable human connection, and a more significant self.

A New Beginning

How can we tell a well-known story, interpret it differently, and make it enjoyable still while everyone knows all about it in detail? Sunrise in nature symbolizes a new day to emerge, but it is much more in my visual narrative. It is a new beginning, an innovative start, and an exciting opportunity for a different experience. You can step into a warm, hugging calmness and relax your mind, or uplift your spirit with exhilarating hope and feed your soul with optimism and confidence. You can feel a physical and emotional balance, comfort, and security to make an essential next step, or you can sense a passion for exposing a new idea, learning a new truth, and touching a new heart with love and sincerity.

With this collection, I invite viewers on a dynamic journey through a realm of imagination, beauty, and introspection. Exploring features of a new beginning associated with natural landscape sceneries and colors, I translate them into an abstract form that speaks directly to the human soul, evoking an emotional response. When our mind cannot associate the image with any familiar objects, it goes through shock at first. Forced to communicate with the soul to define what it sees, it picks up the challenge of translating the soul’s emotions and applying experiences from the past to interpret them.
The effect of the colors is the starting point to communicate with the soul and encourage excitement. At the same time, the eyes are strongly attracted to the color spectrum, charmed with a warm and welcoming palette. The more sensitive the soul, the deeper emotions it will express. “A New Beginning” is a narrative of transformation.

“Color is a power that directly influences the soul… the soul is the piano with many strings. The artist is the hand that plays, touching one key or another, to cause vibrations in the soul.” – Wassily Kandinsky.
I can relate to Kandinsky’s vision of a “spiritual reality in art”; I like to work with a nonrepresentational form of abstraction to challenge the mind, seek an emotional response, and influence the viewers with pure inspiration. My artistic efforts incorporate psychological, philosophical, lyrical, and aesthetical components and associate my style for this project with abstract, symbolism, and aesthetic emotionalism.

See the full article in Art Market Magazine Issue #83