Anne Howeson is an artist, and lecturer at the Royal College of Art.
Anne was a commercial illustrator for many years, with publishing and editorial clients from the UK and America, as well as France, Germany and Canada. She now works on self-initiated drawing projects, currently concerning the regeneration of Kings Cross, where she has lived for several years.
She won an award in the Jerwood Drawing Prize 2000.
Anne’s development interests are:
- to exhibit and produce work on subjects with depth and ideology, within contexts that have a collective and public interest, using a personal and accessible language.
- to develop ‘DRAW’ ( set up with Catherine Anyango in Communication Art & Design as a platform for drawing presentations and debate-see Practice below ).
- to encourage cross-departmental/cultural links within the RCA: through an exhibition on how ‘Drawing as Thinking’ is used by staff and students in the College, and on ‘DRAW’ projects.
- to promote drawing-related research projects by practice.
Anne Howeson comes from a background of illustration. The European Union commissioned her to represent the UK with the theme ‘Freedom for the individual’, in a calendar celebrating interdependence and collaboration between European countries. She enjoys the constraints of briefs, but has more recently developed towards exhibiting, with an emphasis on drawing.
In addition to her practice, Anne’s parallel career has been as an educator, and she finds the roles interconnect with and influence each other. As a teacher she encourages an interest in committed subject matter, and promotes the use of drawing as a tool for unravelling ideas, but also as a way of expressing curiosity about and recording the way we live.
Previous academic posts include: regular lecturing at Central St Martins and Camberwell College of Art, and an External Examiner at universities including Liverpool John Moores and Heriot-Watt, Edinburgh.
Recent projects include: drawings about the present and future landscape of Kings Cross, exhibited at the Arrivals Festival for the opening of St Pancras International Station in 2007; designs submitted for a Royal Mail Stamp about English Cathedrals. Short films: Incubator developed from a drawing shown in the Bath Festival, On the Edge of Life, 2007; and: Narrow Gate, depicting a metaphorical journey inside a citadel, using architecture from the East and West.
Recent published work includes a chapter in 100 Creative Drawing Ideas, ed. A. Held Audette, 2004.