MUNTHE ART MONDAY:
LOUISE HOWARD

Please introduce yourself and tell us about what you do.

I’m Louise Howard, a solo fine artist creating independent, heavily textured, and psychologically driven original paintings. My practice is entirely focused on capturing visceral human emotion and raw studio energy on canvas. I don't believe in over-complicating or over-intellectualizing a narrative through my work; instead, I build tactile visual worlds that rely on heavy, intense layers of paint to tell a story.

Louise is wearing our NINIA SLIP SKIRT.

Can you name some other female artist that inspires you and explain why they do so?

While I am deeply inspired by the raw, visceral human form in painters like Jenny Saville, I often find my greatest inspiration in the sharp, uncompromising internal syntax of writers like Sylvia Plath. Her ability to lay bare the absolute truth of human psychology with such fierce, structured precision is exactly what I try to translate onto a physical canvas. I am captivated by creators who don't hide behind pleasantries, but instead use their medium to dissect intense, uncomfortable internal landscapes. It’s that raw, semi-autobiographical gravity that I constantly strive to capture in my own studio.

Louise is wearing our NELINE OUTERWEAR.

What would you like people to notice in your artwork?

I want people to notice the heavy, physical energy of the paint before they even look at the subject matter - the actual weight, texture, and psychological depth buried in the layers. I want my work to provoke a visceral, immediate reaction and for viewers to feel the friction, the intense emotion, and the unfiltered human narrative underneath the surface. Ultimately, I hope people recognise a sense of fierce, unapologetic authenticity that refuses to compromise for the sake of fitting into a trend.

Could you explain more about how being a woman has affected your career?

Being a woman in this industry means you quickly learn the necessity of carving out your own space rather than waiting for an invitation. It gives me a specific, deeply rooted perspective on emotional gravity, vulnerability, and resilience, which feeds directly into the weight of my canvases. There is an unspoken expectation sometimes for female artists to create work that is softened, palatable, or decorative, but I’ve always moved entirely in the opposite direction. It has forced me to be self-reliant and take control over the curation of my own career.

What has been the most challenging aspect of being a woman in the arts?

The biggest challenge is fighting the expectation that work by women should be polite or decorative, constantly pushing back against structures that try to dilute heavy, intense psychological narratives down to something safe and palatable. I think that being a female painter in the current climate requires an immense amount of grit. You have to work twice as hard to ensure your voice is respected as commanding, raw, and serious. Overcoming that means relying entirely on the quality and visceral impact of the work itself to clear a path.