365 – Ghislaine Howard at Imperial War Museum North until 6th September

Imperial War Museum North presents an intimate and powerful exhibition of Ghislaine Howard’s daily paintings inspired by conflict around the world.

Since October 2006, critically acclaimed Derbyshire artist and 2008 Woman of the Year Ghislaine Howard has created a single 8 x 6 inch painting each day inspired by an image in that day’s Guardian newspaper. Now for the very first time, Imperial War Museum is presenting an exhibition of 365 of these images – one for each day of a nominal year.

Though many of the images are individually beautiful, together they reflect a growing desperation at recent events. By putting these images in a new context Howards asks the question of whether we are overexposed to images of conflict.

Howard sees these paintings as a personal vigil and a way of giving respect and time to images that have become disposable in our news-saturated culture. She remarks, “When I started making the series I intended to continue every day for a year – now I see no reason to stop”. To reflect this, she will add 4 new paintings to the exhibition during May.

The exhibition is a major opportunity to see the work of one of the UK’s most interesting female artists. Ghislaine Howard was named a Woman of the Year in October 2008 by The Women of the Year Assembly for her achievements as an artist and her contribution to society.  She is well known for her perceptive insights into shared human experience and has created work in prisons, women’s refuges, cathedrals and hospitals as well as in partnership with Amnesty International.