About the artist:

Tom Holland’s recent works are the latest installment of an ongoing ten-year series of paintings inspired by the insects and wildlife of Northern California. In this work the subject matter is distilled down to reveal nuances of form and color, derived both from observation in nature and his own interpretations from earlier in the series. He creates both freestanding pieces and wall-reliefs meticulously constructed of geometric shapes cut from aluminum sheets. These are then painted with colorful abstract forms that alternately obscure or emphasize their method of construction. Their richly textured surfaces meld the industrial with the handmade and ingeniously blur the distinction between painting and sculpture. Before the late sixties, Holland painted recognizable imagery in traditional mediums. After 1967, he began exploring the sculptural possibilities of his work, predating Frank Stella in the explosion of painting into three dimensions. It was at this time that easily identifiable content was subsumed into an interpretive abstraction, reflecting the formal concerns of Abstract Expressionism, Constructivism, and the artist’s association with the San Francisco “Bay Area” school. Reprinted from Charles Cowles gallery press release