Paintings by Wayne Howell at Vern Carver and Beard Galleries

Vern Carver & Beard Art Galleries

Wayne M. Howell (b. 1949)

“If it didn’t amuse me, I wouldn’t do it”, Wayne Howell has said of painting.
Yet sheer amusement floats atop something much deeper. “I not only commune
with nature; I feel myself melting into it.” Howell strives to make his paintings
communicate those feelings he experiences before the subject, whether it is a muggy prairie hill surrounded by blazing stars & compass flowers, a subzero Minnesotan scene, a cityscape or a still life.
Howell has traveled to many locations to paint. Some of the trips have been to
trace family heritage in Ontario, Quebec, Long Island, Washington D.C., England,
Northern Ireland, and France. Each visit also includes trips to art museums to
absorb inspiration from works of the past. Other trips have been for historical
interest such as Williamsburg, Canyon De Chelly & Monument Valley, Puerto
Rico, Madrid, the Lake District of England, Lake Tahoe, Yosemite and the
Northern California Coast. Each location is preserved in Howell’s experience with
paintings as “souvenir” reminders brimming with memories. Howell recalls “One
time I accompanied my wife to her job site on the Seattle city streets from
September 8 through the 14th in 2001. With the attack on the World Trade
Center in New York City and my submersion into painting for the week, it became a
most memorable experience, not to mention flying back home again”.
On trips to Lake Superior, the Mississippi River Valley and the Northern
California Coast, Howell and his wife, Pamela, have been accompanied by a naturalist friend of theirs, Timothy Vess, who was their guide to the local floral and fauna and led them to secret places of great beauty. All of the sites, sounds, emotion, knowledge and experience captured along Wayne M. Howell’s Minnesotan journey have emerged in every brush stroke communicating moments of his long adventure to this day.