O n a turbulent, storm-racked afternoon in Houston, Howard Sherman stands between two paintings that churn like opposing fronts: a brand-new canvas still radiating with wet energy and a 2011 work whose frenetic humor once announced him to the Bayou City’s art scene.

Sherman’s studio feels less like a gallery than the eye of a storm. He has just sold a 100-inch painting.

“These are hard to sell,” Sherman shrugs, half grateful, half wary. He is eager to preempt a mislabel that trails him around. “Just guard one thing,” he emphasizes. “I’m not an abstract expressionist. I’m neo expressionist. Really, I’m a contemporary artist.”

Labels make Howard Sherman itchy, but lineage matters. Sherman is quick to say he’s in dialogue with art history. “There’s all kinds of it in the work, including a

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