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Philip Martin Gallery is delighted to present, "Turn," a solo exhibition of new paintings by Holly Coulis. Turn can mean a rotation, a transformation, a change of direction. Coulis's new paintings cleverly play with this idea- a simple shift enacted by form or mind.
The paintings present, at first glance, arrangements of everyday objects - vases, wine glasses, fruit, cats. Often beginning with small sketches, Coulis builds compositions of intersecting planes and multiple perspectives. The paintings are slowly developed with attention to color, light, and space; elevating and challenging our perception of the recognizable. Objects are viewed from the side and above- sometimes overlapping, sometimes encompassing one another, sometimes rotating with a finely tuned rhythm. Shifting scale and implied movement disrupt the inherent stillness of the arrangements or paintings themselves.
Edges of objects buzz with an optical energy. Drybrush texture and layered color give the linear elements a remarkable visual intensity. The focus on these contours heightens the interconnection between objects, the areas that surround them, and even the viewer. Both positive and negative spaces have equal importance- the material and immaterial are simultaneously crucial. Several of the paintings, titled Cat as Universe…, depict a cat linked to a web of planets, fruits, objects, shapes. The term universe here seems to imply the totality of existing things, which feels present in the paintings. Her work taps into a connection between the very small and the infinite.
Large swaths of flat color have an implied depth; foreground and background are always in flux. Her accomplished and unexpected color sense give the paintings a glow and an uncanny adjacency to the world as we know it. Stylistically, the paintings sit at an intersection between Pop Art, Abstraction, and 20th Century still life. Shades of Patrick Caulfield, Ettore Stottsass, and Juan Gris sit beneath her surfaces. There are also hints of Italian futurism in the graphic implications of movement and rotation. Her pictorial structure never actually rests- the still lives are everything but fixed.
Holly Coulis (b. 1968, Toronto, Canada) received her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto, Canada) in 1995 and her MFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA) in 1998. Holly Coulis was featured in the exhibition, "Pocket Universe" (Philip Martin Gallery, Los Angeles, CA). Recent solo exhibitions include "Holly Coulis,” Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); "Sun Shift" (Cooper Cole, Toronto, ON); and "Eyes and Yous," Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York, NY). Holly Coulis’ work was recently included in "North by Northeast: Contemporary Canadian Painting” (Kasmin, New York, NY); Thailand Biennale at the Pimamthip Art Gallery (Pak Chong District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province); and “Evocations: Celebrating the Museum’s Collection” at Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS). Coulis has had solo and group exhibitions at Simon Lee (London, UK); University of Georgia (Athens, GA); Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA); Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Boston, MA); Sardine (Brooklyn, NY); Paramó (Guadalajara, Mexico); El Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca, Mexico); Galleria d'Art Moderna (Milan, Italy); The Bruce High Quality Foundation (New York, NY); and Leo Koenig (New York, NY). Coulis’s work is included in the collections of the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Fidelity Investments (Boston, MA); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Rollins College (Orlando, FL); and UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, TX). Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Flaunt Magazine, Hyperallergic, and FT Magazine. Coulis lives and works in Athens, GA.