“Mood Drawings” by Delmas Howe at RioBravo

RioBravoFineArt, 110 North Broadway in Truth or Consequences, presents “Mood Drawings – The Good Grief Series” by Delmas Howe. The show opening is Second Saturday Art Hop on October 14 from 6 to 9 pm.

The artwork in Howe’s show are abstracts he calls “mood drawings.” Howe, while creating his usual representational pieces, would take a break to capture a sense of his mood on a nearby sketch pad or canvas. These reflections with a mixture of motion and color have a deep, contemplative aura. This show of Howe’s mood drawings is the first public exhibition to feature solely his abstract works.

Howe established himself as an important artist with his “Rodeo Pantheon” series. It spoke openly to the LGBTQ+ community in the format of “serious” art very early on in the gay rights movement. Howe combined his love of a beaux arts style with his childhood experiences growing up in the “cowboy culture” of Truth or Consequences, NM. The use of a traditional, academic style to provocatively represent Southern New Mexico cowboys stands the classical concepts of beaux arts paintings on their head. But at the same time, Howe manages to respectfully pay homage to the cowboys while providing clever insights into American culture. The initial “Rodeo Pantheon” series – catalogued in the publication Rodeo Pantheon – has been followed by other great series – “Stations: A Gay Passion” (critiqued in Arte de Sida en Nuevo York by José Luis Plaza Chillón), “Guys and Canyons”, “Gesture and Texture”, and “Fresh Air”.

Howe, who turns eighty-eight in October, has work in the Albuquerque Museum and the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe. His October show runs through November 26, 2023.

Content for this article was provided by RioBravoFineArt