Texture Under Tension

The artwork on view is an extension of the artist’s work over the past ten years exploring skin, its fragility, shape, identity, power, and privilege. This particular exhibition takes the exploration in a new direction considering the physical tension and limits of skin’s resilience, flexibility, and lack thereof, in the widely shared experience of stretch marks.

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Howell uses her stretch marks in this exhibition as a fitting metaphor for the internal change, joy, trauma, and strain of giving birth, motherhood, and nursing. There are many layers, directions, stresses, and patterns to experience, understand and process.