Royal College of Art 2023

Lewis and Clark College 2019

Resume

PRESS

NFT

My name is Clay Howard and I am the artist behind Slippery Dirt. Currently living in Los Angeles CA.

Pulling from my experiences working in the publishing industry for various magazines, as well as my interest in photography and education in Rhetoric and Media, Slippery Dirt is the culmination of my life experiences and interests.

Working in the publishing industry exposed me to fine art photography and fashion advertising. These two forms play a major role in the subject matter of images and the method I use to build compositions. My pieces are painted collages that stitch together textures, colors, and patterns to create vignettes that describe scenes of modern social class.

My paintings take a satirical approach to the group dynamics, non-verbal interactions, and inflated personalities that exist at social gatherings. I paint my view of the world and working in the hospitality industry has provided me the first-hand experience of a variety of exaggerated personalities that can only be described as cartoon characters. The reptile encapsulates these caricatures and describes the outer skin that visualizes our inner vanity and narcissistic nature. My hope is to challenge viewers by creating aspects of characters that people can see in themselves. I love the idea of self-effacing humor and I try to imbue all my art with some form of relatability. 

My latest direction moves to a more ethereal and meditative plane while exploring texture, pattern, and perspective derived from the environmental settings of my earlier, animated dinner party series. This series, Infinite Rocks, further refines my visual language offering a non-animated environment contained and cloistered by the framework of architecture. These newest works use architecture and repetitive natural materials in a more minimalistic manner that allows the viewer to see multiple perspectives within the painting. with the environments, they exist in.  

I achieved my first goal in my ten years plan when I moved to New York and started working at the Aperture Foundation. In the next five years, I hope to fully sustain myself from the work I create for Slippery Dirt. In ten years I want Slippery Dirt to be a globally recognized name.