NEW YORK, NY.- Von Lintel Gallery presents an exhibition of new paintings by Catherine Howe.

Lush and densely layered, Catherine Howe's canvases overflow with sensuous color, bold gesture and riotous energy. These are tactile paintings. Thick dabs of paint swirl atop Howe's distinctive backgrounds of variegated hues, sultry reds, inky blues and blacks. Spills and textured splatters of paint add to the animated exuberance Howe culls from the spontaneity of her response to material.

As the eye wanders in and through Howe's compositions her expressive marks and gestures take on a loose narrative. Rough forms emerge and take shape in the midst of the chaos—unsteady piles of fleshy fruit, a silver platter, a large bowl, flowers, a single piece of stemware. Her work calls to mind the 17th century Dutch still lifes from which Howe draws inspiration, but without the inertia, more a celebration of life than a caution of its brevity. It is within this space, somewhere between the tangible and unfamiliar, in which Howe masters the shift from the abstract to the concrete and back again, as intent on dissolving the image as creating one.

Catherine Howe has exhibited throughout the United States and Europe for over twenty years. This exhibition marks a return to Von Lintel Gallery after two earlier exhibitions with the gallery in Munich. Her work has been reviewed in the New York Times, Artforum, and Art in America. The artist lives and works in New York.