The first of the texts to grab my attention at Outsider Artist Howard Finster’s current show on display at Carl Hammer Gallery is a white clad angel enveloped in images of flying women in multi-colored dresses titled, “Heaven is for all people.”, completed in 1983.
“Heaven is for All People, Jesus makes it plain how to get there. If you don’t make it, it is your own fault.”
The awkward haphazard style is deliberately sloppy and off kilter, reminiscent of hand-painted signs from the American South. Images of Women having been “set free”, fully clothed, free standing, and relieved of the constraints of the rectangular shape that defines a painting’s object hood.
“Matthew 12:42 The Queen of the South shall rise up in the judgment with this generation.”
Included in the show is a Cornell box style composed of multiple layers of plexiglass receding into a background, each successive layer painted with trees and houses.
Words such as, “I Love you”, “I will be seeing you.” and “Time won’t wait”, are surrounded by text that reads, “In the worlds beyond the light of the sun, where all of man’s victory will all be won. Work will be done.
Included in the text is an ad hoc type of way of keeping inventory of his paintings, “The Dove of God’s Love” lists an inventory of 1,000 and 854 paintings. “Prepare to meet thy God, Jesus will come again, seek for him, lists an inventory of 2,000 and 143 paintings.
Spencer Hutcinson
Howard Finster Man of Visions, May 11–June 29, 2018
Volume 32 no 6 July/August 2018 p 3