West's work explores the themes of physical and metaphysical barriers, obstructions that have been put or placed in our way, that impede or inhibit progress, ensuring the constant repetition of negative patterns of behaviour. This cyclic vortex of human behavior, the inhibition of growth combined with an inability to move forward, is a central tenet of West's artistic manifesto. Combined with a Damascene realisation that all would be well, if only the blockage could be transcended, this lends a bittersweet poignancy to work that attempts to chart the escape from the ever present drip of inevitability.

Howard West's images are infused with omnipresent contradictions, a gamut of human experience with indifference banished to a lesser sphere. Belonging but not belonging, fitting on the surface but suffering from a subterranean identity crisis that screams to the passer by "I am not from here".

Like David Bowie's spaceman in Nicolas Roeg's 'The man who fell to Earth', the theme of the Psychic Castaway looms hauntingly in these works. However dismal the prognosis there is always another experience available to the outcast, as West illustrates, the theme of the willful outsider reveling with Pan like glee outside the gates of convention, displaying a searing burst of life, brightly albeit briefly.

Blood, birth, afterbirth and death. From childhood innocence through angst ridden adolescence, to wry adulthood. Charting a Salinger like journey, not of safe benign contentment, but of bitter realisation that the emperor is naked and the jig is indeed up. The dice metaphorically loaded before we begin, so often the catalyst for the artistic leap from the mediocre and humdrum.

Conversely West exhibits a longing and enthusiasm for life that transcends the gap between retina and canvas. Childbirth, nurturing and parenthood, all the joys and contradictions that are thrust on us when we reproduce, are celebrated with aplomb.

All Artists are reflections of their environment, West being no exception, a product of the Cornish holiday resort of Newquay. Nurture, nature, the salty tang of the sea leaping heavenward against the solid dank mother lode of tenuous Cornish soil. A collision and collusion of cultures in an ocean climate, on land provincial battles rage in motorcycle bars, summer thrills, winter kills. pilchards and coaches, travelers and roaches, all played out and down, amongst raised eye and moorland frown.

West's work spans many genres. The slate grey images of Cornish rooftops contrast dramatically with the populist image of West's birthplace, while conversely, in 'Howard's Wheatfield' West evokes burning Indian summers in an everlasting heat wave of elysian harvest. On closer inspection this image reveals an umbilical longing for the eternal security and sweet sleep of a subliminal safe haven.West successfully explores the symbiotic supporting roles of different textures, clashing against one another to produce a mutually pleasing visual palette.

His woodland scenes are a vivid invocation into resolute stillness of both environment and soul. West's charcoal drawings command the canvas with a graphite textural spectrum that gives hidden depth to a typically stark and unforgiving genre.

Unhindered by cliché, West's sculptures, strongly influenced by Barbara Hepworth with a Daliesque twist evoke spiritual and psychic solidarity.

'The Leap' shows a Rene Lalique inspired humanistic form, gracefully arcing into the night/light, depending on the viewers perspective. This skillful image suggests a brief flashing life, on display only for seconds before descending, almost willfully into decline and invisibility.

West's most engaging and powerful work, the series of flamboyant Pollack inspired abstract screen prints are without doubt his most contemporary and decorative work.

The print 'H Series 2/6' combines aquamarine sedimentary structure juxtaposed with culture clash of granite shards. Again suggesting opposing forces, either combatant or predatory. Much of Abstract art is highly dependant on the suspension of disbelief. West carries the genre with panache.
West's series of paintings, screen prints, charcoals and sculptures chronicle the themes of shared human experience. From outlandish joy to heartrending unobtainability, challenging the perception of fate and somehow proceeding, unhindered by door or mind.

© 2003 Andrew Griffin