Tony Howard

Anthony “Tony” Howard is a Philadelphia-based artist, storyteller, and former digital advertising creative professional. After a long career as an Art Director and Creative Director, working within the digital realm and engaging with technologies like Blockchain, NFTs, and Augmented Reality,

Howard recently made the transition to focus entirely on fine art painting and his original narrative work. He is the creator of an Afrofuturism-based science fiction comic book, which serves as the foundational mythology for his current body of painted work. This pivotal collection of paintings represents the intersection of his digital past and artistic present, leveraging his professional experience in design and his passion for storytelling to explore the universe of his alter ego, Prince TYWHO.

The true genesis of this artistic output lies in the high-concept narrative of Howard's alter ego, Prince TYWHO the First—a royal figure inadvertently stranded 200 years in the past. TYWHO originates from a future marked by intense conflict with the divine rulers of the city of NEODELPHIA, a world he was ripped from after attending a concert by the band Hopalong Camanshii and the Synaptic Kush.

The paintings he creates in the present are not simply canvases; they are coded, desperate messages to the future, crafted in the hope that his advanced society will recognize his plight and locate him using their future technology. Through this artwork, the stranded Prince TYWHO attempts to bridge the vast expanse of time and secure his eventual rescue, making his creative process an urgent, high-stakes communication with the world he was forced to leave behind.