Loie Hollowell

Central to Hollowell’s practice is her inquisitive approach to the human form and her ability to compose otherworldly landscapes that challenge the perception of space. Interested in Transcendental and Tantric painting, Hollowell creates work that is meditative in both process and form. Akin to artists like Hilma af Klint, Agnes Pelton and Tantric painter Gulam Rasool Santosh, whose works embrace the conventions of modernist painting and abstraction to visualize transcendental experience, Hollowell’s paintings also implore a spiritual energy. Through the use of symmetry, color and abstract iconography, Hollowell maps a cartography of psychic space, depicting the essence of the female form unapologetically, sensually and openly.

This is similarly echoed in Hollowell’s formal exploration of illusory space, exemplified by her utilization of three-dimensional surfaces, muted backgrounds and the contrasting radiant colors of her central forms. Citing the Cubists and Italian Futurists as influences who pushed the limits of figurative representation and kinetic movement in painting, Hollowell expands the physical presence of her work by interrupting the two-dimensional flatness of the painted surface with high-density, geometric forms adhered to the canvas so that each painting protrudes from the wall as sculpture. From a distance, each painting appears flat and tightly rendered, but as the viewer moves closer, three-dimensional shapes, textures and a lacework of brushstrokes emerge.