Featured Artist Howard Klee

Artist Howard Klee presents a collection of contemporary figurative paintings created in an enigmatic style. Visit his website to see more of his work.

 

 

I was professionally trained in science and engineering, but life has a way of evolving.

 

 

I was fortunate to have an international career, dealing with the environment, business, politics, and engineering. This included extended periods living in China and Switzerland. As I was winding down my professional activities, I began to look back to my early childhood love of art (at age four, I really wanted to be an artist.)

 

 

My current artwork began in Switzerland where I lived for 22 years. It gradually migrated with me to the United States when I returned from Europe. I now live in Bend, Oregon.

 

 

My work explores and experiments with a variety of media and textures using contemporary figurative and abstract elements. I try to create a sense of the unknown (but vaguely familiar), purposefully obscuring some information, encouraging the viewer to question what they are seeing, what’s the back story, and what might happen next.

 

 

Much of my recent work has focused on what I call unusual people, an amalgam of characters inspired by travel and places I have lived.

 

 

I am a self-taught mixed media painter.  I use a variety of water media but like to experiment with different materials such as tar (goudron), stucco, lace, and concrete. These provide unusual textural effects and hint at evolving images.

 

 

My painting approach is more intuitive than constructed. Using multiple layers of paint, texture, and collage, I begin to see the ideas as they emerge from the canvas. These become my guides to complete the painting.

 

 

In the early days, friends asked me, “What’s your style?” I usually replied, “I’m looking for it!” Now I think I am closer to an answer.

 

 

Some of my work has appeared in the magazine Contemporary Artist (2022 and 2023), in the book Artists of the Bay Area, and on the Artsy website. Paintings are held in private collections in Switzerland, Spain, France, the United Kingdom and the United States.

 

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