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<\/a>She\u00a0was named as a Woman of The Year in 2008 for her contribution to art and society. A painter of powerful and expressive means.<\/p>\nShe first came to public attention \u00a0with\u00a0her ground-breaking exhibition concerning pregnancy and birth, the first of its kind, at Manchester City Art Gallery, A Shared Experience<\/em> the exhibition attracted much critical acclaim.<\/p>\n She has worked on commissioned projects with various diverse communities including cathedrals, theatres, prisons, the BBC, Women\u2019s Refuges and as well as with major organisations such as Amnesty International.<\/p>\n She has shown her large cycle of paintings The Stations of the Cross<\/em> \/ The Captive Figure<\/em> to great acclaim at the two Liverpool Cathedrals at Canterbury Cathedral and other\u00a0venues as part of an ongoing tour of cathedral cities in UK. Her 25 foot high Visitation Altarpiece<\/em> can be seen in Trinity Chapel at Liverpool Hope University<\/p>\n For Liverpool\u2019s celebrations as Capital of Culture she produced a major new work The Empty Tomb<\/em> which was unveiled by the Bishop of Liverpool on Easter Sunday 2008.<\/p>\n She is continuing to work on a series of paintings in response to news images taken from the Guardian newspaper \u2013 an exhibition of 365 of these paintings was shown at Imperial War Museum North from March to September 2009. These are forming the basis of a major new series The Seven Acts of Mercy. <\/em><\/p>\n From February to May 2013, Ghislaine’s drawing Pregnant Self Portrait July 1987 <\/em>was at the centre of the British Museum’s ground breaking exhibition,\u00a0Ice Age Art \/ Arrival of the Modern Mind, <\/em>where it was placed alongside 30,000 year old sculptures of pregnant women, some of the earliest representations of the human form. The film that accompanied the exhibition \u2018Ice Age Art: the Female Gaze\u2019 has attracted over 65,000 views on YouTube.<\/p>\n She has featured in various publications and television documentaries including Degas: An Old Man Mad about Art<\/em>, 1996 and Degas and the Dance<\/em> in 2004, which was awarded the prestigious international Peabody Award.<\/p>\n Her work has played a central role in the three immensely successful and inspirational exhibitions curated by the renowned filmmakers, artists and curators, Al and Al. Bearing the overarching title\u00a0\u2018The Fire Within\u2019, the exhibitions were situated in the open spaces of a transformed shopping mall in the centre of Wigan town known as The Galleries. The second exhibition, ‘Love is a Rebellious bird’ featured over 50 of Ghislaine’s works.\u00a0The third and final show ended in late 2021.<\/p>\n In early 2020 Ghislaine\u2019s powerful \u2018Pregnant Self-Portrait, July 1984\u2019 featured in \u2018Portraying Pregnancy: From Holbein to Social Media\u2019 at the Foundling Museum, London. The exhibition explored representations of the pregnant female body through portraits and included works by Holbein, Lucien Freud and Chantal Joffe.<\/p>\n Ghislaine\u2019s drawing, \u2018Pregnant Self-Portrait, 1987\u2019 in the collection of the Whitworth Art Gallery was one of the central works in gallery\u2019s exhibition, \u2018Still Parents\u2019. This powerful and deeply moving exhibition won many awards including including the ‘Museums Change Lives Award\u2019, 2021-22.<\/p>\n In spring of 2023, Ghislaine worked with the charity \u2018Appetite Stoke\u2019 and Arts Keele to curate an exhibition of over 50 of her 365 panels and with Michael ran a workshop for refugees and asylum seekers.<\/p>\n In 2023 Ghislaine entered into a collaborative partnership with St. Stephens\u2019s House in Oxford, a number of her works may be seen throughout the building.<\/p>\n Ghislaine and Michael are very excited that Bolton Art Gallery have agreed to be partners in the next stage of 10 Boroughs \/ 10 Paintings. The new installation at Elliot House on Deansgate will centre upon a \u2018conversation\u2019 with Barbara Hepworth\u2019s beautiful drawing of \u2018The Magnifying Glass\u2019 one of the eight magnificent \u2018Fenestration Series of Drawings\u2019 that she made in 1948 that is part of their collection. More news soon.<\/p>\n A permanent, but changing, exhibition of over 100 of Ghislaine’s paintings is on view at the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce. Situated in the \u00a0Elliot House, one of Manchester’s iconic Victorian buildings at 151 Deansgate, Manchester. It is open to visitors during working hours and on the last Friday afternoon of every month all the rooms are available to view. The ground floor rooms are co-curated by Al and Al, the creative directors of Haigh Hall, whilst the second floor is dedicated to work associated with the ’10 Boroughs \/ 10 Paintings’ project. over the next 6 years, Ghislaine and her art historian husband, Michael will choose one work from each of the ten borough’s galleries to create a specially curated installation in which contemporary issues will be explored inspired by the chosen artwork. The present installation centres upon Lord Leighton’s spectacular ‘Captive Andromache’ from Manchester City Art Gallery. Its subject is taken from Homer’s Illiad<\/em>, she has lost her husband, killed by Achilles and seen her son murdered before her. Her city destroyed, she is now \u00a0no longer a princess of Troy, but a slave in a distant land. The contemporary resonance of this timeless story is self-evident.<\/p>\n Ghislaine is represented in many public and private collections including the Royal Collection.<\/p>\n A major monograph, Ghislaine Howard, the Human Touch, Paintings, Prints and Drawings, 1980-2016<\/em>, written by Michael Howard and published by Manchester Metropolitan University Press was published in 2017.<\/p>\n Selected critical comments<\/strong>:<\/p>\n Concerning A Shared Experience<\/em>, Manchester City Art Gallery<\/p>\n It is through Howard\u2019s moving embodiment of empathy that she really makes her mark. Her work is so intimately tender in approach it could hardly have been painted by any male at any time anywhere.<\/em><\/p>\n Robert Clark<\/strong>, The Guardian<\/em><\/p>\n Concerning The<\/em> Stations of the Cross \/The Captive Figure<\/em><\/p>\n Howard is well on her way to becoming one of the great humanist artists of our time.<\/em><\/p>\n Zaria Shreef<\/strong>, The Big Issue<\/em><\/p>\n Ghislaine Howard\u2019s images are compelling, powerful, and emphatic. They are unusual in that they communicate man\u2019s inhumanity to man to the art lover and lay person alike. These are very important paintings that transcend the limitations of the gallery space to speak to us all.<\/em><\/p>\n