(Interested in an item listed on this blog as available for sale? You can reach out via email to artist@elisabethhowell.art to inquire.)

The “TL;dr”: 

Elisabeth Howell has been painting since 1984. Originally working primarily in watercolor, she worked in oil briefly before embracing the acrylic medium passionately. An abstractionist for much of the past two decades, her work is characterized by dramatic use of color, texture, and mixed media. Much of her later work incorporated less ‘serious’ pigments and often featured glow in the dark, metallic, and crushed rock, glass, and gemstones. In 2024, she switched to soft pastels as her medium of choice, and landscapes became a more common subject.

Elisabeth considers the Impressionist and Abstract Expressionist movements important influences on her work, as well as being influenced by the work of Peter Max, Monet, Resnick, Klarwein, Korolev, and more recently, Ronnie Gold. Her work is often inspired by movement and emotional experience, planned and created while listening to specifically curated music playlists intended to guide and influence the movement underlying the piece itself, when working in the abstract. Her more recent landscape work is often inspired by long walks on favorite hiking trails, and the sunrises and sunsets of beautiful Yamhill County in Oregon, and the sense of peace she has found in the hills and on the beaches of the Oregon coast.

In greater depth, loosely based on a lifetime of painting:

During 1984-1985 Lisa painted in Carmel California, where she got her start studying informally with several local artists. She painted in watercolor at this time.

1985-1987 Lisa lived in Augsburg, Germany. Her works in this period were in watercolor and oil.

1987-1989 Lisa resided in Killeen, Texas, near Ft Hood. Watercolor and oil were her preferred media at this time.

1989-1992 Lisa resided in Augsburg, Germany, but while on active duty in the Army was deployed to the Desert Shield/Desert Storm. A very small number of war themed watercolors and sketches exist from this period. After the war she returned to Augsburg and her unit was returned from Germany to the US (Ft Stewart, Georgia). Although she had begun to paint in acrylic more seriously, her primary mediums were still watercolor and oil.

1992-1995 Lisa resided in various similar locations in the California area around Yosemite (Coarsegold, Mariposa, and Triangle) prior to her divorce from her first husband. During this period her last oil painting “Evening Storm in Coarsegold” was started (1992) and completed (late in 1995) and she discontinued the use of oil entirely. Her change to acrylic as the medium she favors occurred in 1992, with “The Welder”, her first exploration of the use of non-traditional pigments using subtle ‘interference pigments’.

From 1995-late 1998 Lisa resided in the Fresno California area, first on the outskirts of Clovis, and moving to Fresno’s then-notorious Tower District in 1996.

In 1998, Lisa moved to Portland, Oregon. She painted from her residence in South East Portland’s Reed College neighborhood until 2010, and this decade + period was heavily influenced by her environment and relationships, and is significant for prolonged periods without significant creative work. The various quite distinct creative periods during this time show her varied style and her internal struggles with her personal life, and the deaths of her father and grandfather.

2010 started a period of profound change and growth, and signaled the start of a new period of intense creativity, although her productivity slowed in 2013, her work resumed late in 2014 in a new direction, bringing the use of India ink to her acrylic work.

Over the decade of 2010-2020, a period characterized by social, professional, and familial instability, Lisa continued to paint in acrylic and mixed media. This period has been characterized by bold use of glass, mirror, glitter, and life’s “left-overs”, such as broken jewelry. The death of her Mother, and of a dear niece, and several friends feature in the themes of some collections, such as “We All Feel”, and “All That Glitters”.

Lisa moved to Oregon’s wine country, in Yamhill county, during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020, and this change brought a surprising amount of peace to her day-to-day experience, and the changes in her palette and work-style reflect that, even leading to a notable change in medium. Following the loss of a very dear friend in 2024, Lisa became a pastelist, and shelved all her acrylic paints, and 3D mixed-media tools and embellishments (in part a response to grief, but also due to practical necessity to “scale down” artistically and create a more compact work environment). Her first pastel painting was done on July 10, 2024, and since that time she has found immense joy and delight in soft pastels, which is reflected in everyday landscapes, and more “upbeat” themes, generally.

Lisa listens to music when she paints. Favorite music includes: Puscifer, Lost Dog Street Band, Devil Makes Three, The Dead South, Downliner’s Sekt, Pitbull, Missy Elliott, Skinny Puppy, mc chris, MC Frontalot, Bush, Daft Punk, Dirty Vegas, Gorillaz, Foo Fighters, Gabor Szabo, Groove Armada, Grooverider, Squarepusher, Nine Inch Nails, Placebo, The Prodigy, Srkillex, Radiohead, Thom Yorke, Three 6 Mafia, Tool, Desert Dwellers, Muslimgauze, Megan Thee Stallion, Kendrick Lamar, Cardi B, Snow Tha Product, Tech N9ne, Bakermat, Run The Jewels, Lizzo, Childish Gambino, Skrillex, Oliver Helden, and a variety of other house, drum n bass, rap, dark ambient, and dub step artists, tracks, and sounds.

Much of the presented work shown here is available for sale. Email inquiries are welcome and may be directed to artist@elisabethhowell.art .

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