Margarita Howis Paints the Emotional Pulse of New York

The artist transforming public spaces into emotional experiences.

There is something quietly magnetic about the work of Margarita Howis. Her paintings feel elegant and cinematic at first glance, but underneath the beauty is emotional tension. Faces dissolve. Fragments interrupt perfection. Strength and vulnerability exist side by side.

That emotional honesty has become the foundation of her work across galleries, murals, and immersive public installations.

“I’m less interested in painting perfection and more interested in painting presence,” Howis says. It is a philosophy that feels especially connected to New York City, where the artist has found both inspiration and emotional intensity.

“New York constantly pushes me emotionally and creatively,” she explains. “The city is intense, but there’s also something incredibly honest about that intensity.” That honesty changed the way she paints. “I think my work became more direct here, less interested in perfection and more interested in presence.”

You can feel New York throughout her work. Torn posters, reflections, graffiti, bright lights, emotional exhaustion, ambition, loneliness. Her paintings often feel like visual representations of the city’s psychological rhythm. “I’m inspired by how layered New York feels visually and emotionally,” she says. “Reflections, torn posters, graffiti, lights at night, fragments of conversations. All of it somehow enters the work.”

“I think New York taught me that vulnerability and strength are not opposites. People here carry so much internally while continuing to move forward. That emotional tension fascinates me. My portraits are often about that exact moment where someone appears powerful, but you can still feel softness, uncertainty, or longing underneath. Honestly, some of my best ideas come from simply walking through the city overwhelmed and observing people.”

At this year’s New York Art Expo, Howis explored those emotional contradictions through portraits layered with fragmented city elements. “For me, those moments represent emotional truth more than aesthetics,” she says when discussing the “glitches” and distortions inside her paintings. “In real life, nobody feels completely stable or fully resolved all the time. We all carry contradictions, pressure, vulnerability, different versions of ourselves.”

That emotional complexity is what makes her work so compelling. These are not paintings designed to simply decorate a room. They create atmosphere. The longer you look, the more emotionally revealing they become. “Sometimes one part of us feels controlled while another part is still evolving,” she says. “So when a face dissolves or fragments in my paintings, it reflects that emotional complexity.”

Her recent collaboration with Valentino Beauty during Macy’s Flower Show expanded those ideas into one of New York’s most iconic public spaces. Surrounded by flowers, scent, lighting, and immersive design, Howis approached the experience as emotional world-building rather than a traditional art installation.

“What fascinated me was how immersive the experience already was before I even started painting,” she says. “Valentino Beauty transformed the space into this dreamlike oasis inside Macy’s, built around scent, flowers, light, and emotion.”

Her live hand-painted work became part of that atmosphere.

“My role became extending that atmosphere through live hand-painted work and custom artistic details created in real time,” she explains. “I loved watching people slow down inside the space. In New York, that’s rare. I’m very drawn to environments where painting becomes part of a larger emotional experience rather than existing separately from it.”

That idea of emotional pause continues throughout her public art projects.

Her mural for Underhill Walls in Brooklyn marked her first large-scale public mural in New York City and introduced her work directly into the rhythm of everyday life. “What I love about public art is that people encounter it unexpectedly,” she says. “Someone can see it while rushing to work or going through something personal. They don’t need to enter a gallery for that connection to happen.”

For Howis, that accessibility matters deeply. “I wanted the mural to quietly interrupt the rhythm of the city for a second and create a moment of emotional presence.” That emotional presence is central to everything she creates, whether in New York or Miami, where she has also expanded into larger-scale mural work.

“The energy feels completely different,” she says. “New York feels raw and psychological. Miami feels softer visually, more sensual, earthy, and suspended in light.”

One of her recent Miami murals for the One Hotel explored the relationship between art, architecture, plants, natural textures, and light. “It almost feels like Tulum meeting Scandinavian minimalism. It was actually my second mural for residential part of the One Hotel, and I loved thinking about how art interacts with architecture, natural textures, plants, and light within those spaces,” she says.

That sensitivity to space may come from her background in architecture.

“I actually studied architecture before becoming a full-time artist,” she shares. “I still think that background influences the way I build compositions and space within my paintings.”

Beyond technique, what makes Margarita Howis stand out is the way she observes people emotionally. Her portraits often feel intimate because they are built from subtle human moments most people overlook.

“Usually tension or contradiction,” she says when asked what she notices first about someone. “I notice when someone is trying to hold themselves together, or when emotion slips through for a second despite that. Sometimes it’s in posture, silence, or eye contact. Those small human moments are often what make me want to paint someone.”

Those small moments become the foundation of her work.

“Some of my strongest painting ideas begin from tiny moments most people would probably never notice.”

In a city moving as fast as New York, that ability to slow people down emotionally may be what makes her work resonate so strongly right now.

“Honestly, even a brief pause is enough,” she says. “If someone slows down for a second, feels something, or recognizes themselves in the work, then the painting already did its job.”

The bottom line: Margarita Howis is an artist worth knowing. Her portraits and public installations carry genuine emotional weight, the kind that stays with you after you have walked away. If you see her work in a gallery, a mural, or a pop-up space, stop and give it more than a glance. It rewards the pause.