Linda Holloway seeks to mine personal and universal truths and translate these concepts to the surface of her paintings. The artist views her work as being concerned with connections - of our ideas and our relationships. Delving deep into a psychological realm, works in Everything & No Thing represent the honesty of self expression by the artist, rather than a known external reality belonging to the physical world we inhabit.
The visual identification of these internal realities and the search for a universal applicability in such a context presents a series of challenges for the artist:
“To paint something that is invisible is to paint a ‘no thing’. It is an art of subjectivity, of intuition and irrationality…”
As people we are comprised of ideas, experience and relationships which inform our day-to-day existence. We are also characterised, informed and driven by the sum total of our inner thoughts and experiences. These gather, compress and inter-weave in unique ways in our subconscious creating a subjective reality.
As the nature of internal reality is endlessly varied across human individuals, the final images Holloway creates do not refer to any objective reality. However, the viewer coming with their unique personal experiences may feel connected to the work in what feels like an objective way: what they see becomes a ‘truth’ to them.
This sense of connected ideas is reinforced with quotes from Shakespeare across the exhibition. In combination with these literary references, the presence of abstract and organic elements gives the impression that we are looking at compact visual poems. Viewing paintings like There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio and ‘the play’s the thing’ we are reminded of the enduring nature of the compact literary forms which Shakespeare employed and the universal nature of his themes.
While the works discuss universal themes, they are also created to express personal truths. The nature of the paintings allows flexibility in their interpretation and translation by the viewer. The same forms may appear to the individual in different ways – from crowds of people to clusters of cells; sub-atomic explosions to supernovae; from microscopic to inter-galactic workings. Holloway provides a suitable backdrop for these interpretations: a hermetic visual quiet where forms float dreamily in our subconscious.
As a passionate, vocational artist for fifteen years, part of Holloway’s discipline is the daily experimentation and engagement with the process of painting. This process evolves and is revealed over time on the surface:
“Whatever the style, the subject of my work is always painting itself. There is a process of continual questioning embedded in my practice so that it speaks to both the history, and future of painting. There is a strong desire to escape from past categories in order to connect with the immediate presence of the work.”
The interplay of relationships between space, colour, light and form as apprehended by the viewer is reflected as a consequence of the artist’s unfolding process. The idea of the artist responding dynamically to both the flat surface in front of her and her selected materials in a unique one-on-one engagement, is a key element of her practice. Holloway’s process is painstaking, building up layers of paint over many weeks until completion, and as such a great sense of space, depth and time is present in the many ethereal and floating layers of paint and form.
View exhibition »