Katy Cowan & Heidi Howard
something of a body, of a tempo
July 20 - August 31, 2019

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Et al.  presents

something of a body, of a tempo

something of a body…
KC: These current sculptures and drawings are stuck in night thinking and I keep seeing them as obstacles. Obstacles that have been stumping me, harassing me, and are out of my control - like the night, like the ocean, like flowing metal. Obstacles that are the big shifting bodies that fascinate and pull me in, but do not provide any handles on which to grab. I have felt like I am following these pieces around and am trying to either catch up or just let them exist as large scapes of thinking. Horizonless and vast.

HH: I paint bodies in space without the illusion of light. Escaping the traditional pairing of figure and ground, features, gestures and garments become actors that conjure a likeness of my sitters. Recently floral objects have grown out of the expanded portrait of/collaboration with my mother Liz Phillips, "Relative Fields in a Garden." This 40-foot-high by 100-foot-long wall painting and 22-channel sound installation is on view at the Queens Museum until February 2020.

of a tempo…
HH: In every painting I make my movements are a response to my sonic environment. Most often this resonance is the conversation I have with my sitter while I make their portrait. Sometimes my sitters send me audio files to listen to when they are not present. Sometimes they play music.

KC: I’m constantly thinking through tools and materials and paying attention to how those thoughts create a sort of motion. Ropes bend and disentangle and begin to resemble the insides of bodies or the movements of water; liquid metal forms to show its fluxing and temporal path while oil paint and graphite pull out the particularities of the metal surfaces. And these formations call out various cadences, tempos, and staccatos that are quiet, hidden, sensuous and, at times, camouflaged. I’m thinking about different speeds of activity here – those tempos, formations, and fluctuations of movement – and how I can allow my objects to respond to these various speeds.

Heidi Howard and Katy Cowan have followed each other's work for many years. They will meet in person for the first time to make this exhibition.

Heidi Howard (b.1986, New York, NY) paints portraits of close friends. The structure of each painting is based on the color feelings, style, and images inherent to her sitter. Through this approach, each sitter is reflected not only in an outward likeness, but also via the paint application. Howard has exhibited her work at Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, NY (2017, 2016, 2015), Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, MA and Cologne, Germany (2018, 2017), The Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, NJ (2017), James Cohan Gallery, New York, NY (2016) and many more. She has been an artist in residence at Palazzo Monti (2018), Byrdcliffe (2014) and the Vermont Studio Center (2011). She received her BA from Sarah Lawrence College and her MFA from Columbia University. She lives and works in Queens, New York. Her collaborative installation with her mother the interactive sound sculptor Liz Phillips, “Relative Fields in a Garden”, will be on view at the Queens Museum until February 2020.

Katy Cowan (b. 1982, Lake Geneva, WI) makes sculptures and drawings that investigate the terms of the art object, the identity of the maker and the site of making itself. Cowan's body, her studio tools and the events in her immediate environment serve as generative subject-matter for her artworks. These artworks investigate human experience and the traces left by such experience. They suggest that ideas and objects are both physical and metaphorical, and that an impression can take forms both indexically literal – like a metal cast – and expressively iconic -- like a drawing. Cowan has exhibited her work at Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA), Green Gallery (Milwaukee, WI), Lynden Sculpture Garden (Milwaukee, WI), Kate Werble Gallery (New York, NY), and many others. She received her BFA from The University of Puget Sound (Tacoma, WA) and her MFA from Otis College of Art + Design (Los Angeles, CA). Cowan lives and works in Berkeley, CA.