



We are in the midst of a moment of epochal transformation with the demand that the landscape of American memory, as embodied in figurative public monuments, must be reassessed. This, often wrenching reassessments, had resulted in the alteration of these monuments through additions and removals aimed at correcting historical erasures that have resulted in systematic biases extending into the present. Howard Skrill’s latest works on paper are perhaps an inevitable progression from the practice he launched in 2013, when he would carry around a folding chair and whatever materials he could fit in his paint-smeared backpack to make plein air drawings of public monuments in walking distance from his Brooklyn home where he has lived for decades with his wife. The monumental transformations that Howard has faithfully represented in his recent studio works on paper document objects broken by hammers, chisels and human hands, obscured by markers, spray paint, and plastic wrap and ultimately brought down by lassos and cranes. Works from the series are being exhibited and published widely.