Eric Holzman: Thinning the Veil

New York Artists Equity Association is pleased to present a solo show featuring a survey of paintings and drawings by Eric Holzman. Utilizing a vast scope of media including oil paint, egg tempera, watercolors, charcoal, and pastels, the artworks exist within their own temporal realm, divorced simultaneously from both modernity and the past, undefined by time and place. Teetering on the edge of contemporary and classical, Holzman’s art evokes and combines the aesthetics of disparate styles and eras. Visuals of ancient Roman frescoes, Renaissance, Symbolist, Impressionist, and Abstract Expressionist paintings, and traditional Chinese and Japanese ink wash works meld together in an effortless, seamless manner. The artist forges a meticulous, ethereal visual language that manages to encompass perfectly its many parts while still being distinct and unique.

Plants, landscapes, human figures, and still lifes shift in and out of the nebulous atmospheres in which they are situated. His subjects dissolve and become diffused into the background, collapsing visual planes. Elegant, flowing linework is interspersed throughout the dreamy, hazy environments created by Holzman, weightless and untamed. Voluminous, ample bundles of leaves and greenery spill into the air, unrestrained like radiating light. Often, Holzman depicts the accessible — scenes from the Catskills, Hudson Valley, and Westchester County, as well as objects such as pottery, household decor, and produce. Yet, in his rendering, they are communicated as heavenly bodies, imbued with a type of divinity, and transformed into the mythical.

Yet, Holzman still imparts his work with a weighty earthliness, contrasting the blissful, picturesque aspects. Ink and paint wash over and cake the surfaces of his drawings and paintings, giving the artworks a bronzed patina composed of intermingled colors. Holzman’s already warm, luscious tones of emerald, sapphire, and gold are further deepened and enriched through this additional layer. The paper of Holzman’s drawings does not hide the wear and tear of his artmaking process, often exhibiting slightly tattered rough edges. They appear weathered, but actively resisting the ravages of time like long-lived culturally significant artifacts crafted of precious materials.

Holzman’s work thrives within this painstakingly cultivated equilibrium; ancient and current, grandiose and grounded, celestial and worldly.