GAY PEOPLE'S CHRONICLE

SECTION B

JANUARY 28, 1994

Evenings Out

Mark Howard: cut from a different fold

By Charlton Harper

In the mid-80's, before the current interest-boom in the Cleveland Flats, it would have been easy to find artist Mark Howard hanging out in the burnt-out shell of the Powerhouse. Today you can still find Mark at the Powerhouse. Only now, it's his paintings that are doing the hanging. A recent solo exhibition at Art at the Powerhouse brought him full circle, from art student killing time, to established artist with fully supportive gallery backing.

That kind of coming around to beginnings; getting to basics, is hard to miss with Mark's work. He is a master at folded-paper

Mark Howard

JEFF NEARHOOF

cut-outs, child's play, "paper dolls" he calls them, downplaying the levels of intricacy he achieves.

These aren't the crapped-out, misshapen Valentine's hearts you might have tried back in kindergarten. Mark folds paper in half, and then in half again. Using an XActo knife, never scissors, he captures the widest variety of life in his paper silhouettes. Sports figures, kids getting haircuts, cityscapes on fire, the homeless. Each cutout can take from 2-3 hours, or several days. Some are blown-up onto canvas and painted in sand-mixed acrylics. The texture "adds depth," says Mark, "makes it more táctile, gets people more intimately involved."

A wide range of influences is also evident. Serpentine art nouveau lines, sweeping Moorish curves, wild, explosive pop goofiness. It's easy to guess where this all began. "Yeah, I did like to cut things out as a kid," he laughs, caught with the X-Acto knife in his hand. “I really liked cutting out Batman dolls. Now, I try to do one cut-out every other day. It can be therapeutic. Even when I'm taking a break, I'm still folding paper."

The recent Powerhouse show broke new ground for Mark. It wrapped-up a year's exploration of the sexual side of gay life. Canvases ranged in size from small to very large (57" x 82"), centering on men together-kissing, embracing, sucking, screwing, talking on phone sex lines. Color and stylistic influences reflect the subject matter. Brilliant oranges and reds thrust the action in your face, like blinking neon signs. Muted blues and greys add grandeur, while pink and maroon provide quiet intimacy. Highly representational human forms (the result of five years of life drawing at art

school) mesh against more abstract shapes that only hint at human anatomy. The works are refreshingly and unashamedly direct and erotic, rare in this age of AIDS.

The intensity of a room filled with images of men blowing men made me wonder if this wasn't a bit of therapy too, a working out of themes that wasn't possible elsewhere. "No, not really," he says. "The subject matter is the only thing different. I had wanted to explore sexual themes, but I don't look at these as any different from an urban scene or a domestic subject. It's the same level of expression."

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A wealth of meaning in a simple paper cut-out by Mark Howard.

No matter the stylistic influence or the subject matter, what is most constant is the repetition. "My major at CIA [Cleveland Institute of Art], was painting and textiles. Working with textiles trained me to look at patterns." Each blade cut is as subtle and critical as a brushstroke. Mark tells me that the "fun part is when you unfold the paper. Sometimes a whole wealth of meaning comes out, things you didn't expect." The repeated sexual images that result add a processed, manufactured feel, saying something about the packaging and selling of sex.

Though Mark's a veteran of many gallery exhibitions, finding the right space for this show was rough. "I really did not want to show this work in a niteclub. I'm already dealing with a limited audience. The art buying public is just not that large here. A niteclub would limit the response even more.

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But there's not a lot of gallery support for this kind of material." Mark has been bravely supported by gallery owners Joan Perch and Paul Biber. "The support has been unquestionable. Paul was excited from the start. There was never a question of not having certain pieces in the show. There was total freedom. It was all up to me."

The show broke new ground for the gallery as well. "We know now where we can go with things," says Paul. "We had to make sure that we were protected, that people knew what they were getting. But this was ground-breaking in knowing that you can do a show like this in this space."

Though the show has ended, Mark's association with Art at the Powerhouse continues. It's probably easiest to contact him

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there since, "I've had my phone disconnected," he says, the embarassed starving artist. Many of his works are housed at the gallery. Paul or Mark will be happy to provide a private viewing.

While he's tired and "probably gonna take a rest for awhile," Mark is already thinking about his next work. He doesn't worry about technical dead-ends, and he isn't limited to gay erotica. "Each cut-out shows me new things, new directions. I'd like to try working with metal, thin metal where I could create relief effects. But what I'd really like to do is fences," he says, excited, his eyes glowing. "Couldn't you see turning cut-outs into fences?" My head begins to swim in a web of wrought-iron penises.