Andrew Holmquist’s Paintings And Collages Are Bold And Confident

moray mair | Art and design | September 11, 2012

Andrew Holmquist‘s paintings and mixed media collages belie his youth. Having only graduated from art school four years ago he has already begun to create noise with his work. Both his paintings and collages are full of brilliant colours and confident, bold and energetic brushstrokes. His language most certainly belongs in pop culture but his interest in painting, the act of painting, comes out of his love for two great masters of art history; Titian and Rembrandt. Both have influenced his methodology and style.

Here’s what he has to say about his own work:

My paintings take advantage of the viscosity of oil paint and play with the mercurial nature of a representational image essentially made out of colorful mud. I often choose recognizable imagery from popular culture or the surrounding world to act as an invitation to the viewer. Once hooked and reeled in, they are presented with a more complicated and engaging scene to investigate. Painting itself is often the main subject, as bright blobs and ribbons of paint sit on the surface and contend with the image they are supposed to represent. What held together at a distance now falls apart up close into a state of becoming or metamorphosis. Representation gives way to investigations of materials and the possibilities of abstract painting. The layered physical space of brushstrokes opens up a slippery fourth dimension where the visual history of how the painting was made is equally as recognizable as the portrait