Oracle; Truth Bearer 2021

Lanise Howard made this evocative painting called, 'Oracle; Truth Bearer', sometime after 1993. The piece has a photographic realism in the figure, set off by soft mark making and colour mixing in the background, like the artist is deliberately inviting the viewer into a space of layered artifice, a painting that is both real, and dreamlike. The paint application has a smooth, almost airbrushed quality, particularly in the face of the figure, yet the details of the clothing and the landscape suggest a more tactile approach, with visible brushstrokes and layered textures. See how the artist renders the blades of grass with individual strokes, creating a sense of depth and movement across the field, or the soft shadows under the man’s shirt. This tension between meticulous detail and atmospheric abstraction gives the work a mesmerizing quality, pulling us between the world of the painting, and our own lived experience. There is a kind of formality and timelessness to this image, it reminds me of the work of Barkley L Hendricks, but it is clear that Howard is bringing a new perspective to the genre of portraiture.