Elizabeth Gartner Howe is an established artist based in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where she lives and works along the shores of Lake Superior. For over 40 years, she has created paintings rooted in a close connection to the natural world, working both from direct observation and memory. Her work explores the moment when a landscape shifts from something seen to something felt—when light, color, and movement invite a deeper sense of immersion.
Working primarily in oil and acrylic on wood panel, Gartner Howe builds abstracted landscapes through layered transparent and opaque passages. Her paintings balance structure and atmosphere, capturing the effects of wind, water, temperature, and shifting light. Drawing from the heightened color found across the seasons, she often pushes beyond expected palettes to create spaces that feel both familiar and expansive.
Her practice includes both plein air and studio work, as well as a long history of large-scale murals and public art installations. While she values intimate works, she is equally drawn to the physical and emotional impact of larger pieces.
Primarily self-taught, she has studied with artists including Richard Claremont, David Langevin, and Sheila Davis. Her work has been exhibited in galleries, public spaces, and private collections across Canada and the United States, and has been featured in publications and on television.
For over three decades, her studio has also been a place of teaching and mentorship. Through Elizabeth Howe Studios, founded in 1989, she continues to support artists at all stages while developing her own body of work, guided by an ongoing exploration of light, color, and the experience of being in nature.
Artist Statement
I aim to create a sense of connection between the viewer and the natural world. These paintings invite a pause, a moment of recognition, where light, colour, and movement feel familiar and immersive, like a distant memory from time spent outdoors.
My work is shaped by close observation of organic forms and the shifting qualities of light and shadow. Each season offers a different palette, often pushing beyond what we expect nature to look like, and I follow those moments where colour feels heightened or surprising. Working on wood panels, I build landscapes through layers of transparent oil paint and opaque passages, allowing the surface to move between clarity and obscurity. Bold marks establish structure, while pulled and softened areas create a sense of reflection, atmosphere, and motion.
In select works, Gartner Howe revisits paint-by-number imagery from her childhood, reinterpreting these early compositions with the depth of her current practice. These paintings carry a personal story, bridging past and present, with moments left intentionally unfinished as a reflection of continued growth and exploration.
These paintings move between representation and sensation. They reference specific experiences—light on water, wind through trees, fog rolling across a landscape—while leaving space for the viewer to complete the moment. The goal is not to describe a place exactly, but to recreate the feeling of being in it, where perception shifts and time briefly slows.
EXHIBITION: SEEING CLEARLY
BESSE CENTER AT BAY de noc COLLEGE
2001 North Lincoln Road, Escanaba, Michigan, 49829
Show Runs: March 2 - April 23.
Artist Talk/Panel Discussion and Reception is March 5 at 2 pm.
Curated by Art Faculty and Fine Arts Coordinator Kristine T Hunter
This exhibition brings together finished paintings and works on paper to trace the ebb and flow of an artistic practice. Large-scale paintings anchor the space, while a series of pinned sketchbook pages and studies reveal the thinking, revisions, and quiet decisions that shape each work.
Presented as both outcome and journey, the exhibition invites viewers to slow down, linger, and consider the value of small moments alongside larger gestures. In an educational setting, the work offers an open view into process — embracing uncertainty, intuition, and the layered labor of making.
