Andrew Hollis. (Im)possibilities

17.02.2011 - 28.04.2011

ROLLO Contemporary Art, London / United Kingdom

ROLLO Contemporary art’s spring exhibition (Im)possibilities, presents painter Andrew Hollis’ latest body of work created between 2009 and 2011.
Hollis paintings presented in (Im)possibilities are derived from found photographic images sourced from encyclopaedia and year books from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s, giving his resulting paintings a consciously ‘dated’ aesthetic. Incorporating elements of two or three different source images into one painting, Hollis further confuses the relationship between past and present in his work and disrupts the idea of a central narrative within a picture, exploring the way one interprets imagery, the relationship between painting and photography, and the limitations of ‘realism’ in painting.... The artist describes the body of work as ‘images of historical non-realities and images of non-historical realities’1.
Proving adeptness and adaptability in his painting, any one of Hollis’ paintings display a diverse mixture of painting styles: at times informational, at times gestural; sometimes photorealist other times utilising a bold and abstract handling of paint, Hollis paintings themselves refer to a range of image types and point to paintings position within a wider context of imagery modes.
Hollis work has been described by critic Paul Carey Kent as ‘Hollis’s paintings aren’t just theoretical ways to examine the legacy of the painted image, nor just provokingly mysterious conjunctions of images – though they are both – they’re surprisingly complex voyages in time across the history of how images are constructed and perceived.’

(Aus / from: Pressetext / press information)