Paintings of absence and melancholy (I) – Chairs and windows by Jim Holland

Some thoughts on Jim Holland’s work and some selected paintings

Jim Holland is an American artist, born in 1955 in Schenectady, NY. He works with oils and watercolours, following a style marked by stripped-down realistic depiction (sometimes photorealistic, and sometimes a little surrealistic to my eyes). Anyway his paintings transmit great serenity and a sense of melancholic solitude very much alike the one found in the mature work of Edward Hopper—an artist for whom Holland has had a lifelong admiration.

The enduring themes in Holland’s paintings are the light, the space and simple architectural forms near the ocean, in New England, where he resides; he is really fond of windows, chairs, isolated houses and empty boats, docks, deserted views of the beach, with a sea almost always calm… Very rarely there is any presence to be seen, be it human or not, but we can occasionally see some vestige of it more or less close in time: a shirt hanging on the back of a chair, an open book, a cup of tea or coffee…

There is not much originality in his work –but he does not seek it or pretend it, either–; just great beauty and an extraordinary technical competence (the play of light and shadows leave us amazed (have a look at “Light on a Chair” below) …; most ripples and reflections on the water are masterly as well). There is silence too and, very often –as much as in Ed Hopper’s paintings–, an open way to meditation and -at least for me- toward some disquieting excursion into philosophy.

(Of course, true art does not require at all to be original. Most artists in painting, literature or music are not. On the other side, many original -even never seen- works are not art. There is not the least doubt in my mind that Jim Holland is a true artist.)

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The Blue Shirt (2012 – oil on canvas)

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(Unknown title, oil on canvas)

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(Unknown title, oil on canvas)

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Through an Open Door

(Unknown title)

Light on a Chair

(unknown title)

Outside, the Shining Sea

Interior with Library Chair

[Several chairs near windows]

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Blue Shirt 3 (oil on canvas)

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The Green Room

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Keepsakes

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You will find a second post on Jim Holland -with a small gallery of his marine paintings- here down:

Paintings of absence and melancholy (II) – Jim Holland’s empty boats

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