Desiree Holman
Gallery Affiliations: Jessica Silverman Gallery
Region: Pacific Coast
I identify as an artist and amateur anthropologist. Informed by
research and observation, projects are produced as thematic
series, like chapters in a book. Each chapter investigates the
behaviors of various subcultures, often predicated on notions of
social norms and connectivity. Collectively, my work is informed
by a sense of “otherness” and the existence of alternative
viewpoints, as defined by French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas.
My current project investigates everything spacey, including
astrology, aliens, auras, harmonic convergence, mysticism,
occultism, animal magnetism, and a myriad of other spiritual
pseudo-sciences. I am obsessed with the leaps of faith we
choose and refuse to make everyday. This new work explores the
iconography and aesthetics associated with these realms, treating
fringe fantasies as if they were fact. The sensuous works, which
consist of gouache and airbrush paint on paper, seem to float
above the page. Art, historically, they channel Francisco Goya’s
monstrous Saturn, Mark Rothko’s mystical color fields-and Vija
Celmins’s starscapes. The imagery moves swiftly and easily
between figure and abstraction, terrestrial and extraterrestrial,
new and old ages.