Work — Jayhowleyworks.com

About

Jay Howley is an illustrator, printmaker and educator based out of Baltimore, Maryland.

Jay’s work stretches to encompass and combine disciplines in printmaking, comics, small press publications, and illustration. Howley is a current artist in residence at Baltimore Creative Alliance.

Jay’s work has been shown at West Chester University, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, and the Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, as well as the National Aquarium. Selected works have been featured in BmoreArt, Baltimore Magazine, Baltimore Voyager and Bubbles fanzine.

photo by Madisyn Tait

Education
2026 - MAT - Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD
2025 - BFA - Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore MD

Solo exhibitions
2026 Dots and Loops, Cofrin Gallery at the Burgin Center for the Arts, Mercersburg PA
2025 More Than I Can Chew, MICA ArtWalk Commencement Show, Baltimore MD
2025 Doors At Seven, Gateway III Gallery, Baltimore MD

Select group exhibitions
2026 Putney Faculty Exhibition, Alexander Calder Arts Center, Putney, VT
2026 MAT Graduate Thesis Exhibition 2026, Fred V. Lazarus Center, Baltimore MD
2025 Putney Faculty Exhibition, Alexander Calder Arts Center, Putney, VT
2025 GRIT: XOXO Gallery, Baltimore , MD
2024 Works Better on Paper:
2024 MESH, Pyramid Atlantic Art Center, Hyattsville, MD
2024 MICA Printmaking Exhibition, Fox II Gallery, Baltimore MD
2024 Big Prints, MICA 15/15, Baltimore MD
2024 Printmaking Department Juried Exhibition, Juried by Jessica Gatlin, Fox III Gallery, Baltimore MD
2024 Second State Press Presents: Expanding Methodologies in Print E.O Bull Center for the Arts at West Chester University

scholarships & awards

2025 Mark A. Kusiak Family Scholarship in Printmaking
2021 -2025 Visionary Scholarship, MICA
2021-2025 MICA Achievement Award
2021 Columbia University First Place Portfolio Illustration for Magazine Publications
2021 Austin V. McClain Award for Excellence in the Fine Arts
2019 Scholastic art & Writing Awards - Honorable Mention for Excellence in Writing

experience
2025 Printmaking Apprenticeship, Putney Summer Arts, Putney, VT

articles & publications
2025 Atomic Books presents: MUTANT #7
2025 Baltimore Magazine - Best of Baltimore 2025
2025 BmoreArt - “Belonging: A guide to Membership Programs at Art and Music Venues”
2022 “Comics in my Mailbox” Bubbles Fanzine
2018 - 2021 “The Blue Review” Vol. 27-30

collections
Library of Congress Special Collections
Decker Library Special Collections
Burgin Center for the Arts Alumnus Collection

Posters

Collected posters 2023 - Present

Prints

Selected prints 2022- Present

Just to be Near You

Screen print
12”x18”
2026

Edition of 14

Brick II

Screen print
5”x7”
2026

Edition of 9

Star Struck

Screen print
18”x20”
2026

Edition of 12

Star Struck

Screen print
8”x9”
2025

Edition of 25

Commission for the Baltimore Creative Alliance

Cowards

Relief print with chine colle
18”x24”
2025

Monotype

Post - Grad Plans

Screen print
10”x19”
2025

Edition of 12

Old Knobby Summit

Screen print
20”x22”
2025

Monoprint

Part of More Than I Can Chew (2025)

What Goes Up

Screen print
20”x22”
2025

Edition of 4

Part of More Than I Can Chew (2025)

Must Come Down

Screen print
20”x22”
2025

Edition of 4

Part of More Than I Can Chew (2025)

Shed

Screen print
12”x12”
2025

Edition of 8

Part of More Than I Can Chew (2025)

Wait

Screen print
8”x15”
2025

Edition of 4

Part of More Than I Can Chew (2025)

And The Valley Looked Back

Stone lithograph
9”x12”
2024

Edition of 5

Comics

2020 - Present

Sticks

2025

16 Pages

5.5” x 3.5”

Link to Purchase

Two Snakes Wearing Boots Give Their Local Drainage Pipe a Look See

2023

24 pages

8.5” x 11”

Link to Purchase

Big Machine Megazine No. 2

2023

55 pages

4.5”x 6”

Link to Purchase

Two Snakes Wearing Boots Go For A Little Stroll

2023

2 Color Risograph comic
16 Pages
8.5”x11”

Sold Out

A Portrait of The Most Dangerous Man In the Whole Wide World

2023

136 Pages

Link to Read

Link to Purchase

Big Machine Megazine No. 1

2022

2 Color Risograph comic
16 Pages
8.5”x11”

Sold Out

And Yet We Remain

2022

Linocut comic
24 pages
6”x 6”

Sold Out

MAW

2021

Sci Fi quarantine project
30 pages
5.5”x 8.5”

Sold Out

About

Big Machine is an Independent Small Press imprint founded in 2021 by Jay Howley, dedicated to making great work seen. Big Machine focuses on highlighting the unseen aspect of creative process, celebrating the act of doing and inner mechanics that drive great art.

For more updates and work, you can find Big Machine at @bigmachineworks on instagram.

Doors At Seven

Doors At Seven: Show Posters by Jay Howley
The Great White Wall - Baltimore, Maryland

February 2 - 21 2025
Doors at Seven is a collection of show posters created from September 2023- January 2025, an inquiry into chronological curation as a means of analyzing process and personal development, as well as a love letter to the DMV music scene.

Photographed by Evelyn Cox

More Than I Can Chew

ArtWalk Senior Thesis Exhibition
Fox 4 Gallery - Baltimore, Maryland

May 10-16 2025
Photographed by Evelyn Cox

In More Than I Can Chew, objects follow figures, clinging to the body, filling rooms and dissolving into the textures of the prints. Sticky notes, plastic bags and cardboard boxes cling to my peripheral.

Reminders of my role as consumer, these objects bleed between spaces, a shared vocabulary of found things that occupy the acts of setting up and tearing down within the prints. I reuse materials, collaging films and drawings to build up images through active revision.

The films will be deconstructed for future prints, just like the works that came before. This process of building up and tearing down runs parallel to the anecdotes of everyday renovation and errands which occupy the prints.

These piecemeal moments are grafted together to create larger narratives of the day to day and the things I notice that inexplicably stick with me.