Photograph by Itzel Alejandra, 2026
Heidi Howard is a New York–based painter. An internationally exhibiting artist, Howard’s work spans still lifes, portraits, and en plein air landscapes.
Howard’s portraiture emerges from a unique choreography of the studio encounter. To prepare for a session, Howard will first spend time one-on-one with their sitter, sometimes over months or years. During this period, the artist develops an impression of that individual’s personality and shared aesthetic predilections. At the studio, Howard creates a welcoming environment, painting swiftly and responsively, and always serving a home-cooked dinner at the session’s conclusion. This interaction—defined by conviviality, reciprocity, and nourishment—pointedly reimagines the historically loaded, sometimes-exploitative dynamic between painter and model.
A lifelong resident of Queens, Howard grew up steeped in New York’s creative firmament. The daughter of avant-garde composer Earl Howard and installation artist Liz Phillips (a frequent collaborator), Howard learned to see art, art-making, and art institutions as integral to community and family life. For Howard, painting is inextricably tied to rhythms of the everyday, part of a continuum of gestures, habits, and domestic experiences. Improvisation is at the core of their work. Loose brushwork, dancelike gesture, and a fully embodied expression reveal a debt to female painters such as Joan Mitchell and Helen Frankenthaler, while a Day-Glo palette, Les Nabis patterning, and embrace of irresolution and accident show a highly personal interpretation of the broader history of modernist painting. Taken together, Howard’s subjects—many of them artists—register a cross-section of New York’s artistic world. In this regard, Howard’s artworks are a road map to a particular orientation, perspective, and place.
Since the completion of a large-scale mural project at the Queens Museum in 2018–20 (made with Phillips), Howard has turned increasingly toward paintings of plants and flowers. In these works, luscious, bold colors, and broad, sweeping line coalesce into ravishing statements about form and color. As in their portraiture, Howard works quickly and loosely, responding in real time to subtle movements of a leaf or petal as the painting unfolds. This ethic of engagement points to a sense that for art to matter it must be indistinguishable from life itself: porous, reciprocal, and constantly in motion.
Heid Howard has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, including at the Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University (2024, New York), One River School (2020, Englewood, NJ), Gaa Gallery (2019, Provincetown, MA), Nancy Margolis Gallery (2017, 2015, New York) and Con Artist Gallery (2011, New York). In addition, Howard has featured in group exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum (2025, Amsterdam), Dunkunsthalle (2024, New York), Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center (2023, New York), Simone Subal Gallery (2021, New York), Queens Museum (2018–20, New York).
Heidi Howard
1986
Born in Queens, New York
Lives and works in Queens, New York
Education
2014
Columbia University, New York, New York
2008
Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Selected Solo Exhibitions
2024
Colors make us do vibrant deeds!, The Leroy Neiman Center for Print Studies at Columbia University, New York, New York, September 9–October 10, 2024
2022
Exchange Place Portraits, Exchange Place Alliance, Jersey City, New Jersey
2020
HEIDI HOWARD, One River School, Englewood, New Jersey, February 22–July 2020
2019
Like Water For Faces, Continuo, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, June 13–July 2019
Roots Run Gold to Pink, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 31–June 24, 2019
2017
Woven Traits, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, New York, May 18–June 24, 2017
2015
Portrait and Dream, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York, New York January 15–February 14, 2015
2011
Painting for Love, Con Artist Gallery, New York, New York
Selected Two Person Exhibitions
2025
Visions for Civic Gardens, Two Rooms, La Jolla, California, August 29–October 4, 2025
2024
Esteban Cabeza de Baca & Heidi Howard: Night & Day Dreams, David B. Smith Gallery, Denver, Colorado, August 22–September 28, 2024
2023
Light from Water: Heidi Howard and Esteban Cabeza de Baca with Liz Phillips, Wave Hill Public Garden and Cultural Center, Bronx, New York, August 29–November 26, 2023
2018–2020
Heidi Howard and Liz Phillips: Relative Fields in a Garden, Queens Museum, Queens, New York, October 7, 2018–February 16, 2020
2019
Heidi Howard and Katy Cowan: Something of a body, of a tempo, et al. gallery, San Francisco, California, July 20–August 31, 2019
2017
Esteban Cabeza de Baca and Heidi Howard: Verano, Gaa Gallery, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, September 2–November 25, 2017
Selected Group Exhibitions
2025–2026
The Best Dutch Books Designs 2024, Beijing Book Fair, Beijing, June 18–June 22, 2025; Hyundai Card Art Library, Seoul, July 1–September 30, 2025; The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, November 8, 2025 –January 4, 2026
2024
Babel, Sara’s World at Dunkunstalle, New York, New York, September 5–September 22, 2024
2022
Artist in Residence Biennial, UT Downtown Gallery, Knoxville, Tennessee, September 2–October 15, 2022
Lichtung, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts, April 1–July 3, 2022
2021
Visions and Nightmares, Simone Subal Gallery, New York, New York, July 1–July 30, 2021
2020–2021
DRAWN: Concept and Craft, Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, September 16, 2020–February 14, 2021
2020
Bubble Orchestra, The Virtual Dream Center
2019–2020
Friends and Family, Peter Mendenhall Gallery, Los Angeles, California, November 23, 2019–January 4, 2020
2019
Zeit-Geist-Zeit, Gaa Gallery, Wellfleet, Massachusetts, August 3–September 21, 2019
May China, Tongda Group, Chengdu, China; Xi’anAcademy of Fine Arts, Xi’an, China
Francesca Longhini, Kara Rooney and Heidi Howard, Palazzo Monti, Brescia, Italy
2018-2019
The Queens International 2018: Volumes, Queens Museum, Queens, New York, October 7, 2018–February 24, 2019
2018
Summer Jam, a painting show, W139, Amsterdam
Against Forgetting, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts, May 25–July 10, 2018
Plǝt-, Supersimetrica, Madrid, Spain
Concurrent Realities, Gaa Gallery, Provincetown, Massachusetts
2017
Water and Dreams, Chicken Coop Gallery, Portland, Oregon; Green Gallery West, Milwaukee, Wisconsin
Spring 2017, Gaa Gallery, Cologne, Germany, April 23–May 28, 2017
Red Matters, Hunterdon Museum of Art, Clinton, New Jersey
2016
Bomb Pop Up!, 1822 Fulton Street, Brooklyn, New York
Intimisms, James Cohan Gallery, New York, New York
2015
Scent, Dickinson Roundell Inc., New York
Figuration: Inside/Out, Nancy Margolis Gallery, New York
Sight | Site | Cite, Outlet Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
Signature Piece Café Edna, Greenpoint, NY, organized by Krisstofer Marchena
60 Americans Elga Wimmer PCC, New York
New Work New York, 695 Grand Street, Bushwick, New York
2014
Nancy Margolis Gallery @ Miami Project, Miami, Florida
Four from Fourteen, Nathan A. Bernstein Fine Art, New York
2014 MFA Thesis Exhibition, Fisher Landau Center for Art, Queens, New York
2013
United Against Speculation, The Leroy Neiman Gallery, New York
Networking Tips for Shy People, 200 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, New York
The Beauty of Friends Coming Together, Industry Cities, Brooklyn, New York
And after a pause, it continued., The Wallach Art Gallery, New York
Magical Thinking, 200 Livingston Street, Brooklyn, New York
2012
Seeking Space, The Loom, Brooklyn, New York
For Her Love, Arts East New York Inc., Brooklyn, New York
2011
The Lifecatching Project, Con Artist Gallery, New York
Seeking Space, The Loom, Brooklyn, New York; 330 Morgan Ave, Brooklyn, New York
2010
Sideshow Silent Art Auction, The Gowanus Hotel Ballroom, Brooklyn, New York
2009
It’s a Wonderful Life, Sideshow Gallery, Brooklyn, New York
2008
Barbara Walters Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
2007
Barbara Walters Gallery, Sarah Lawrence College, Bronxville, New York
Books and Catalogues
Gaby Collins-Fernandez, Brenda Coultas, Natasha Marie Llorens, Veronika Sheer, Amy Giovanna Rinaldi and Heidi Howard. Colors make us do vibrant deeds!. Pheobe Press, 2024.
May China 2019: A Collection of Works of Chinese and American Artists. 2019.
The Best Dutch Book Designs 2024. St. Best Verzorgde Boeken, 2025.
The Queens Museum. The Queens International 2018. New York: The Queens Museum, 2018.
Wave Hill. Light from Water: Heidi Howard & Esteban Cabeza de Baca with Liz Phillips. New York: Wave Hill, 2023.
Periodicals
Abby Schultz. “Meta Infuses Its New Midtown Manhattan Offices with Large-Scale Art.” BARRON’S, August 24, 2022.
Benjamin Sutton. “Meta puts analogue art front and centre in sprawling new Manhattan office.” The Art Newspaper, August 24, 2022.
Daniel Laplaza. “Painting with the power to persuade.” Epicenter NY, February 1, 2022.
"David Cohen, Vincent Katz, Christopher Stackhouse and Martha Schwendener discuss Mamma Andersson, Merlin James, Heidi Howard and Titus Kaphar." The Review Panel, February 13, 2015.
Diana Seo Hyung Lee. “Queens International 2018: Volumes,” ArtAsiaPacific, February 2019.
Dodie Kazanjian. “Many Artists Began Painting Outside During the Pandemic—And they Might Never Go Back.” Vouge, September 15, 2021.
Eileen Kinsella. “See the Freshly Commissioned Artworks That Meta Is Unveiling at Its Sprawling New Headquarters in New York’s Moynihan Station.” ArtNet News, August 24, 2022.
Elizabeth Buhe. “Light from Water: Heidi Howard & Esteban Cabeza de Baca, with Liz Phillips.” The Brooklyn Rail, September 2023.
"Featured Artist." Epicenter NY, February 16th, 2021.
Gaby Collins-Fernandez with Liz Phillips and Heidi Howard. “Bubble Orchestra,” Precog Magazine, Spring 2020.
Jeroen Bos. “De kleurrijke wereld van kunstenaar Heidi Howard.” Het Financieele Dagblad, June 18, 2025.
Kate Liebman. “HEIDI HOWARD.” The Brooklyn Rail, March 2015.
Katherine McMahon. “Let’s Rock the Beach: Artists Stage Annual Beach Painting Club on Hamptons Sand, Partying and Painting in Honor of Elaine de Kooning.” Arts News, August 14, 2019.
La Jolla Light. “Best Bets: A quick guide to La Jolla entertainment and experiences.” San Diego Tribune, August 19, 2025.
Malika Ali Harding. “A Seat at Her Table.” Story Rebels, April 9, 2018.
Martha Schwendener. “What to See in New York Art Galleries This Week.” The New York Times, June 15, 2017.
Megan Garwood. “Gallery Nights Every Wednesday this February: Heidi Howard through January at Con Artist.” on-verge, February 2011.
Meryl Fontek. “Born of Sound.” The Wild Magazine, January 2, 2015.
Michael Anthony Farley. “Is Site Specificity Relevant to a Generation of Nomads? Not Really.” Art F City, August 28, 2015.
Michael Tedja. “Summer Jam, a painting show in W139.” Metropolis M, August 27, 2018.
Neil Chiragdin. “Big museum exhibit now has partner in libraries.” Queens Chronicle, October 25, 2018.
Nitin Mukul. “Light from Water: Heidi Howard & Esteban Cabeza de Baca, with Liz Phillips.” Epicenter NY, September 5, 2023.
Rain Embuscado. “How to Spend the Day Seeing Amazing Art All Over Queens.” Vulture, November 21, 2018.
Pamela L. Bonner. “Artists in Residence bring colors and shapes to Carrizozo.” Ruidoso News, December 24, 2018.
Pearl Fontaine. “Meta Open Arts Commissions New York Artists for Farley Building.” Whitewall, August 26, 2022.
Stephanie Sporn. “In the Landmarked James A. Farley Building in New York, Meta Curates and Commissions Artists’ Largest Works Yet.” CULTURED, August 24, 2022.
Tanner West. “Editors’ Picks: 16 Things Not to Miss in New York’s Art World This Week.” Artnet, August 26, 2019.
Tessa Solomon. “For Meta’s New York Office, Artists Created their Largest Works Yet. See Them Here.” Art News, August 25, 2022.
Vignone, Jennifer. “Going, finding, being “home” at the Queens Museum." Art Dealer, June 28, 2019.
Writing
Heidi Howard. "Aliza Nisenbaum Interviewed by Heidi Howard." Bomb Magazine, August 28, 2023.
Heidi Howard. "Cecelia Condit." The Brooklyn Rail, 2008.
Heidi Howard. "Susan Chen." Curator Guide, 2021.
Heidi Howard. "Turning to the Light: Paula Wilson Interviewed by Heidi Howard." Bomb Magazine, Oct 24, 2022.
Performances
2024
Sound/Swim/Mirror, Sara’s World at Dunkunstalle, New York
2022
Sea Gestures: Sound Swim, Fridman Gallery, New York, New York
2019
Relative Fields in Motion, conceived and directed by Heidi Howard, electronics by Liz Phillips, movement by Cynthia Koppe, saxophone by Earl Howard at the Queens Museum, Queens, New York
Residencies and Awards
2023
The Harwood Museum of Art
2022
Meta Open Arts Commission
2021
Yonkers Artist Residency Project
Terra Summer Residency
Atlantic Center for the Arts
2020
Artist in Residence UT Knoxville
The Rauschenberg Residency
2019
Queens Council on the Arts, Individual Artist Grant
2018
Carrizozo Artist-in-Residence
Palazzo Monti
2013
Rose Biller Scholarship
Edward Mazzella Scholarship
Faber Birren Scholarship
Andrew Fisher Fellowship
2014
Byrdcliffe Artist in Residence
2011
The Vermont Studio Center, Artist/Writer Grant
