to capture what you cannot kill — Devin M Howell

My father escaped from Cuba with his family at the age of fifteen during the Freedom Flights in the early 1970s. Though we lived close in proximity to each other for most of my life, we did not share a traditional tight knit latin family bond. The relationship I’ve had with him and the rest of my Cuban family has been sporadic and inconsistent since I was a child. In many ways my father and I share the experience of living in exile. As I’ve gotten older I have asked him to fill in the years of gaps with our family history and the details surrounding their escape to America.

This body of work represents narrative paintings about his past in Cuba, as well as memories based on a shared experience between us. I think of these paintings as a visual biography, where the biographical reference acts as a prompt. This prompt allows for possibilities that enable a kind of logic for the what and how of each painting.

Accessing my dad’s memories posit an interesting problem; I can only access them through imagination, resulting in a fictional image. I think about addressing the canvas as a container, composing and filling the surface with dynamic figures in a pictorial space. Using a narrative structure as a prompt allows for possibilities for the work to evolve, the constant editing and shifting results in a painting deeply rooted in perception. The slippery nature of the facts surrounding the narrative allow for distortion; a pushing and pulling of the figure in space.

The gaps that exist between my father and I will never close entirely. The relationships I have with my family and our shared history will remain fractured and not entirely known. This leaves room for further exploration of memory, and invention of the unresolved.

checkpoint in Madruga, October 1962

36X36 oil on canvas, 2019

Mariano answering the door

18X24 oil on canvas

sugar water (agua con Azúcar)

36X36 oil on canvas

everything changed

36X36 oil on canvas

chocolate milk

30X48 oil on canvas

chocolate milk.jpeg

cafecito and machete

18X24 oil on canvas 2019

road trip

36X48 oil on canvas

lunch

30X40 oil on canvas

stealers, keepers.

24X59 oil on canvas

stealers,keepers.jpeg

gut bucket

30X40 oil on canvas

haircut

36X64 oil on canvas

Howell_ haircut.jpg

it's artsy

18X24 oil on canvas

swamp cabbage

24X36 oil on canvas

swamp cabbage.JPG

saturday morning back tickle

oil on panel 12X16 2019

saturday morning

oil on panel 12X16 2019

grave robbing

oil on panel 12X16

cold cherimoya

57X84 oil on canvas

excavation

oil on panel 12X16

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Back to to capture what you cannot kill

checkpoint in Madruga, October 1962

Mariano answering the door

sugar water (agua con Azúcar)

everything changed

cafecito and machete

stealers, keepers.

saturday morning back tickle

saturday morning