Wabi-sabi

In this series Linda Holloway responds to the notion of wabi-sabi, a Japanese aesthetic concept that embraces asymmetry and imperfection. Working on boards or varying dimensions, Holloway utilises a spare and tranquil palette, exploring her exquisite layers of washes to hint at dream-like landscapes. Works appear more pared back than the artist’s typical painting style, yet remain populated with her characteristic diminutive figures, together with looming abstract forms.

An initial encounter with Linda Holloway’s paintings might suggest that they are directly accessible through a familiar iconography centred upon the art and literature of Western civilisation.  Panoramic landscapes viewed from on-high, populated by diminutive figures on a voyage or quest to somewhere else. It’s the stuff of classical literature and popular culture, from Homer’s Odysseus to Ridley Scott’s Thelma and Louise.
- Warren Feeney

Julia Stevenson's complementary works continue the principles of wabi-sabi, with pieces folded in the form of fans. These careful constructions incorporate etchings, monoprints and chine colle individually hand-printed on paper.

Julia was a teacher for ten years after graduating from Auckland University with a Masters of Science degree in Molecular Biology and Mathematics. Since then she has committed herself to painting and printmaking.

I have developed a body of work using egg tempera and ink on a traditional gesso ground. I am always awestruck by the beautiful simplicity and enduring quality of the art of the ancient world with the airy feeling of the ground breaking through the layers of paint. I see painting as a form of alchemy. These paintings become planes parallel to nature, dream spaces that receive impressions of nature, as symbols or idealized, almost archetypal forms. They are about memory and longing and the revealing of the human soul.

Julia’s works in Wabi-sabi are related to passages in Homer’s Iliad.

LINDA HOLLOWAY BIOGRAPHY

Lives: Auckland
Education: Master of Fine Arts in Painting (Hons), Elam School of Fine Arts, University of Auckland; Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, University of Auckland; Post-Graduate Diploma in Broadcast Communication, University of Auckland
Awards/Distinctions: The Wallace Art Awards - Finalist (2012, 2009)
Collections: The James Wallace Arts Trust, Auckland; The University of Waikato, Hamilton
Public Exhibitions: The Care Factor, Calder & Lawson Gallery, The University of Waikato, Hamilton (2013); Air New Zealand Fashion Week - Invited artist, Auckland (2010)
Publications/Articles: ‘Compassion and Global Concern’ by Peter Dornauf,www.eyecontactsite.com, 4 Mar, 2013; The Care Factor Exhibition Catalogue, The University of Waikato, Hamilton, 2013; ‘Moments fixed in time with still-life skills’ by Terry McNamara, The New Zealand Herald, Apr 2011; ‘Innocent victim or malevolent goddess?’, Art News New Zealand, Autumn 2010

JULIA STEVENSON BIOGRAPHY

Lives: Auckland
Education: Master of Science, University of Auckland
Public Exhibitions: Artstation (2002, 2001); City Art Station (1997)