Frank Howell

Sioux Figures

Frank Howell was an artists with ancestry in the Sioux tribe. His work often depicts the very spiritual nature of his tribes through use of ethereal colour and line. 

"Born in 1937 in Sioux City, Iowa, the late Frank Howell spent his early childhood drawing sketches of the people and places around him. As an adult, his lyrical, artistic interpretations of faces and landscapes employed a visual representation of the wind as it sweeps across time: past, present and future. He viewed his images as universal symbols.. a kind of visual mythology that reaches out and spiritually awakens the observer. Perhaps influenced by his Lakota Sioux ancestry, much of Frank’s work reflected a love and respect for the Native American cultures."- The Frank Howell Gallery, source

Howell's work is representative of the universally relevant nature of his tribes beliefs. The hair of the figures in his painting glows and flows in the wind, seemingly reaching out  effortlessly and almost becoming it's own entity. I think this is representative of the message that native american belief is universal, and everyone can learn from it. This is also the message I am looking to show in my work, therefore I will look into this use of line to apply to my own pieces.