Loie Hollowell: Sensual Abstraction
Emma O’Neill unpacks how American painter Loie Hollowell translates personal experiences of sex, pregnancy and childbirth in a language all her own.
Image credit: Loie Hollowell, Lick Lick, 2018, oil paint, acrylic medium, sawdust and high-density foam on linen mounted on panel 121.9 x 91.4 x 8.3 cm. Photo: Mark Waldhauser
Head. Breast. Buttocks. Belly. Groin. These are the five elements at the centre of Loie Hollowell’s investigation of the body, her own body in particular. Concentric circles emerge from each canvas like planets. Pendulous forms, crescents, ovals and spheres are tightly rendered in otherworldly palettes that bend and emanate light. In concert with colour, subtle sculptural elements direct the rise and fall of light.
Rendering the female body with a discreet vocabulary of shapes, Hollowell’s practice hovers between abstraction and figuration. The geometrical compositions depict not only the physical body, but also the psychological space of the body itself. Above all, they chart personal experiences of pregnancy, childbirth and sex. Point of Entry (lingam between teal circles) (2017), for example, presents the moment of penetration during sex. The composition depicts a large golden phallus moving towards a turquoise sphere against a cherry-red foreground.
Hollowell’s oeuvre reads like a timeline of her life, undulating bellies accompanied her own pregnancies and explicit references to breastfeeding followed as subject matter. Trickle Down (2020) depicts the latter. Five cantaloupe-coloured semicircles emerge from a central white dividing line, lactating into a swirling foreground of lathered greys and open mouths.
The artist’s steep incline from artist-run space to auction house is testament to the impact of her paintings. In 2015, a chance encounter with her former professor Ridley Howard led to an exhibition at his Brooklyn artist-run space 106 Green. At the time, New York Times critic Martha Schwendener prophesied: “The next time you see Loie Hollowell’s paintings it will ...Subscribe to read this article in full
