Howard Skrill

Removal of Forrest from Memphis

9" x 30" Ink, gesso, goauche, pencil on paper, ©2018

on display in Spring 2019 at Riverviews Artspace in Lynchburg, VA

Sims Lassoed for removal to Green-Wood Cemetery

30" x 12"Ink, gesso, goauche, pencil on paper, ©2018

on display in Spring 2019 at the Berrie Arts Center at Ramapo College, Ramapo, NJ

Lee Statue Removal from Dallas 2

30 1/2" x 7" Ink, gesso, goauche, pencil on paper, ©2018

on display in Spring 2019 at the Berrie Arts Center at Ramapo College, Ramapo, NJ

Howard Skrill, the creator of the Anna Pierrepont Series (howardskrill.blogspot.com/ @skrillhoward on Instagram), explores in plein air and studio drawings and paintings, the erasure of public and private memory through the installation and occasionally the removal of public monuments. The works included in Barzakh Magazine are from a recent body of work in the series “Bonfire of the Vanities” named after the reactionary backlash against Renaissance humanism in Florence that resulted in many Renaissance artworks being destroyed in a massive bonfire that became known as the “Bonfire of the Vanities.” Howard’s “Bonfire” pictures are studio images capturing the metaphoric flames rising from public places throughout post-Charlottesville, United States as statues are being wrenched from their long time perches including in Memphis (Nathan Bedford Forrest), Manhattan (J. Marion Sims), and Dallas (Robert E. Lee). Howard, an artist/art educator, is long time resident of Brooklyn, New York, where he lives with his wife. His images are exhibited nationally standing alone and incorporated in pictorial essays published in literary and academic publications worldwide.