Rachel Howard was born in County Durham, United Kingdom, in 1969. She graduated from Goldsmith's College in 1991 with a degree in Fine Arts. Howard currently lives and works in London. She is best known for her abstract paintings; in these, Howard layers poured paint, allowing gravity, precision and chance to work simultaneously. Her use of strong vertical and horizontal lines lends depth to these paintings. Similar practices are used in her figurative works, where the paint on the canvas holds equal weight with the physical subject. In these, the figures themselves are often painted using her traditional gravitationally controlled poured paint. Howard's works have been shown extensively throughout Europe. She has participated in many group exhibitions, including Intuition/(im)precision at Galerie Thaddeus Ropac, Salzburg, Austria, curated by Thomas Krens in 2004. In 2007, Rachel Howard exhibited a new body of work at the Bohen Foundation, New York. Howard's 2007 exhibition in Beverly Hills was her first with Gagosian Gallery.
