Ben Howe

Benjamin Howe (born 1977 in London, England) is a contemporary Australian artist known primarily for his figurative and experimental oil painting.

Education and career He holds a Masters of fine art degree with distinction from RMIT University.

Howes work is distinguished by his scientificly-surrealist imagery that is both hyper-realistic yet reductive. His works have been referred to as ‘isolated or lonely’ and regularly feature a muted or monochromatic palette. Howe's paintings are often derived from preliminary explorations in other media such as sculpture, photography, and film. His works frequently examine ideas relating to inconsistencies of memory, personal history and the nature of consciousness. Howe's artwork has been exhibited worldwide. He has had 23 solo exhibitions, including 2 retrospectives, and his work has been included in more than 70 group shows.

Howe was the winner of the 2024 Richard Lester Prize for Portraiture for his enigmatic painting ‘Cartagena Library. ’

In 2023 he won the Eureka prize. His work ‘Permanent Rose’ was a finalist in 17th International ARC Salon, and he received a distinction in the Portrait Society of America's 28th annual competition with ‘Matilda in Blue. ’ In 2021 he received an Honourable mention in the Beautiful Bizarre art award. In 2019, Howe was a finalist in the Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, and the Lester Prize. He has also been a finalist in the Black Swan Prize (2016), and the Metro 5 Award, (2012 and 2011). In 2017, he won the Hill Smith Prize at NotFair. He has been the recipient of residencies and fellowships including the Ucross Foundation, USA (2015), Shangyuan Art Museum, China (2014), and SKAM, Germany (2007).

Howe's paintings have been featured as cover art on several music releases, book covers and reproduced in magazines and journals including Hi Fructose, Beautiful Bizarre, Selected Contemporary Artists of Australia, Hyperrealism Magazine, Double Dialogues and Out of Step Books. In 2019, his paintings were used in a new publication of Moby Dick, celebrating Herman Melville’s 200th anniversary.

Howe was a finalist in the 2024 Archibald Prize for his portrait of Kylie Moore-Gilbert and Sami Shah.

Works "Crowds", 2009 – present Howe created a series of miniature sculptures to simulate the idea and feeling of an assembly, without any attachment to an actual event. The dioramas were photographed and rendered in paint, using a technique that appears photographic from a distance, yet becomes more abstracted and painterly with proximity. He is known to destroy the sculptures and reuse the same block of clay for every piece.

"City", 2010–2013 These paintings address movement within the metropolitan environment, informed by research relating to the examination of aggregate behavior over various duration and viewpoints. Howe attempts to compress this information into single images by building overlapping layers of paint based on video footage and sequential photographs. The paintings are an attempt to show how collective elements reveal potential form over time; the individual and the city part of an integrated whole. Using the constraints and unique material attributes of paint including layering, color, texture and fluctuating levels of focus, Howe explores conflicting ideas of symbiosis, dislocation and placelessnes within contemporary life and the metropolitan crowd.

2022 Ashen Rainbow, Compendium Gallery, with Scott Livesey Galleries, Melbourne, Australia 2022 The More Things Change, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2019 Leviathan, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2018 A Strange Architecture, Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide, Australia 2017 Weave, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2017 Selection, Mycelium, Melbourne 2016 Themes of Dislocation and Habitation, St Francis, Melbourne 2015 Monochromatic Anomalies, Lorimer Gallery, Melbourne, Australia 2014 Within the Grey, Shangyuan Museum of Modern Art, Beijing, China 2013 The Sum of its Parts, Metro Gallery, Melbourne 2012 Signs, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 2011 Exploring Transience: locating meaning within the urban crowd. First Site Gallery, Melbourne 2010 Schism Overwrite, As Soon As Gallery, Hamburg 2009 Graffscapes, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 2008 Urban Fractures 2, 5-502, Sydney 2007 Once Upon a Space, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne 2007 Raumatisiert, Wir sind Woanders, European art festival, Hamburg 2007 Urban Fractures, SKAMraum, Hamburg 2006 Surface Variations, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne 2004 Forms and shadows, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 2003 Selected works, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne

Group exhibitions 2025 Exploration 25, Flinders Lane Gallery, Melbourne 2025 Dark Art 2025, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2025 Adrenaline Junkie, Norman Rea Gallery, University of York, England 2024 Lester Prize, Western Australian Museum, WA 2024 Archibald Prize, Art Gallery of New South Wales 2024 Together, Always and Never, White Night, Ballarat, Victoria 2024 Antipodes 2024, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2023 Dark Art 2023, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2023 Antipodes 2023, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2022 Interconnected, New England Regional Art Museum (NERAM), NSW, Australia 2022 Throwback, 6 years of Beinart Gallery 2021 Dark Art, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2021 Lucid, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2021 Lucid Dreaming, Copro Gallery, Santa Monica, USA 2021 Antipodes, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2020 Dark Art, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2020 Antipodes, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2019 Doug Moran National Portrait Prize, Sydney 2019 Lester Prize, Art Gallery of WA, Perth Cultural Centre, WA. 2019 Dark Art, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2018 Australian Art, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2018 Ephemeral, Modern Eden Gallery, San Francisco, USA 2018 Focal Point: New Realist Painting. Hill Smith Gallery, Adelaide 2018 Dark Art Show, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2018 Bluethumb Award, Melbourne 2017 NotFair 2017, Melbourne 2017 The 13th Hour, Last Rites Gallery, New York, USA 2017 If Our days won't Last, Distinction Gallery, Escondido, CA, USA 2017 Art collecter starter kit, Corey Helford Gallery, Los Angeles, USAv 2016 Metro Summer Show 2016, Melbourne 2016 Beinart Small Works 2016, Melbourne 2016 Metropolis, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 2016 Transmogrify, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2016 Black Swan prize, Art Gallery of WA, WA. 2016 Beinart Inaugural Exhibition, Beinart Gallery, Melbourne 2015 Whyalla art prize exhibition, Adelaide Festival Centre, Adelaide 2014 Shangyuan Resident Artists 2014 2014 Ben Howe and HaHa – Second Story Studio, Melbournev 2014 Strange Attractor, D11 Docklands 2013 Supporters Exhibition, D11 Docklands 2013 Urban, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 2013 Your Old Self, Tinning Street Gallery, Melbourne 2012 Exploration 12. Flinders Land Gallery, Melbourne 2012 Melbourne Art fair, Exhibition Building, Melbourne 2012 Matter and Space. Ne Na Contemporary Art Space, Chiang Mai, Thailand 2012 Possibilities, Metro Gallery, Melbourne 2012 Dark Horse. The Dark Horse Experiment, Melbourne 2012 It's Not You, It's Me, Eckersley's Open Space Gallery, Melbourne 2012 Climate Change. Metro Gallery, Melbourne 2011 RMIT Master of Fine Art Graduate Exhibition. Gossard Project Space, Melbourne 2011 The Brunswick Show, Donkey Wheel House, Melbourne 2011 Space and the city, Eckersley's Open Space Gallery. Melbourne 2011 Surface: Texture, Materiality and Conceptual Plasticity, RMIT School of Art Gallery, Melbourne. 2010 SoBright, Prague, Melbourne 2010 New, Used and Abused, Loft Gallery, Melbourne 2010 The Brunswick Show, Donkey Wheel House, Melbourne 2010 Irene's Street art festival, Irene, Melbourne 2010 Out of Nowhere, 696 INK, Melbourne 2010 Grand Opening Show, 696 INK, Melbourne 2010 Urban Art 10A, Brunswick St Gallery, Melbourne 2009 Gaengeviertel, Hamburg 2009 Melbourne stencil festival, Collingwood, Melbourne 2009 Art Melbourne, Exhibition Building, Melbourne 2009 Painting 09A, Brunswick Street Gallery, Melbourne 2007 Stencil and Freeform Combinations, A.S.A, Hamburg 2007 Art Melbourne, Exhibition Building, Melbourne BSG stand 2003 Selected Contemporary Artists of Australia, Manyung Gallery, Melbourne 1997 Contingency, RMIT Graduate Show, Span Galleries, Melbourne