ERIC JON HOLSWADE

While attending the School of Visual Arts, Holswade fed off The Abstract Expressionist movement, looking closely at the work of Franz Kline, Motherwell and Joan Mitchell. It was during his senior year that he began to focus on the color and spacial work of Blinky Palermo. However, it was the deeply personal works of Basquiat, Hesse, Beuys and Burri that pushed him to search deeper into his own experiences with life and self as an inspiration for painting.  After graduating, Holswade knew there was something missing in his work.  Frustrated, he left New York. Intending a cross-country drive to California, he stopped in New Orleans and was immediately seduced by the aging signs of decadence and raw humanity found throughout the city. He found a new home.  It would be 3 years before he made his way back to New York.  The south would prove to be an invaluable ingredient in understanding his life and artwork.

Never an admirer of landscape painting, Holswade was surprised to find himself drawn toward nature and unique architecture as a subject. Perhaps it began with the uncertainty that followed the 9/11 tragedy, but he found himself yearning for simple beauty, or the emotional freedom experienced when confronted with the awe of nature. The physical building and layering process through which he began creating the landscape paintings revealed a perfect fusion of collage, color, abstraction and imagery.

In the artist’s words, “Art has always been a way for me to escape into a world of thoughtful poetry.  Art has always been a place for me to realize just how incredible it is to be alive.”