Toronto 
Events Description
Expanding on the notion of a ‘personal atmosphere’, Howlett’s new exhibition undertakes a melancholic mapping of surface and structure. Layered and compartmentalized, the works give shape to an ongoing conflation of interiority and exteriority, familiarity and estrangement, accumulating as much as building.
In these new works, architectural and domestic spaces become vessels for thought and feeling, figurative structures that alternately elaborate and obfuscate. Often beginning with schematic imagery from early Renaissance illustrations, Howlett stages abstraction through the lens of humoral theory—the classical system linking bodily fluids to health and temperament. This conceptual grounding opens the work to a fluid interplay of certainty and uncertainty between places, objects, and bodies.
Across multiple mediums—including distemper, egg tempera, watercolor, shellac, oil stick, metal leaf, and oil paint—Howlett constructs richly complex surfaces that hold space as much as depict it. His practice remains rooted in attentive looking and ongoing revision, producing paintings that continually renegotiate their own structure and meaning.
Who is it for?
All ages
HOW MUCH
Tickets : Free
Free
How to get tickets?
At the door: Free, not required
WHEN & WHERE
Date: Thursday January 15, 2026 to Saturday February 21, 2026
The gallery is open to the public Wednesday through Saturday from 11am to 6pm or by prearranged appointment.
Venue & Address
Susan Hobbs Gallery, 137 Tecumseth Street, Toronto, Canada M6J 2H2
Wheelchair accessible
