meet Jess Howe

Jess Howe is a multidisciplinary artist based in New York working primarily in acrylic painting, whose practice is rooted in a lifelong habit of studying the world. For Jess, everyday moments have always doubled as subject matter and instruction:  a landscape becomes a study of perspective, the sun at high noon becomes a study of hue and light, and passing clouds become a never-ending master class from the greatest teacher of all time, mother nature herself. Her work explores presence and self-reflection through paint.

Jess's artistic foundation is a mix of formal training and self-teaching. She holds degrees both in visual arts and interior design with a minor in art history. She often reflects on her time at the Fashion Institute of Technology as the catalyst in finding her artistic voice. Using that foundation, she went on to teach herself furniture refinishing, antique restoration, resin work, and now painting on canvas.

That hands-on curiosity led her to open up her own small business called Ruinous Revived. Since 2018 this vintage lifestyle and houseplant shop has become a pillar of the community featuring both her own artwork as well as numerous small local artists. Prints of her original paintings can be found in-store and have found a strong and steady audience that eagerly await each painting release.

Jess began painting on canvas at the end of 2023 after accepting a custom commission of a lighthouse painting, framed within a salvaged antique window she was restoring. What started as a passing familiarity with color theory from college quickly became a driving focus. She recognized in this commission the same spark she had felt years earlier refinishing furniture for the first time. In that moment she knew for the second time in her creative life that she had started something she needed to see through.

In the months it took to complete the first painting, she began developing what would become her current body of work, The Rebuild, a six part series exploring the process of dismantling and reconstructing the sense of self. Jess is currently finishing the final two paintings in the series and looking ahead to bringing that work into a gallery setting. Alongside painting, she continues to grow her business with plans to expand her prints to wholesale offerings to more shops over the coming year.