“Passage of Time”: works by Katheryn Holt and “Embracing it All”: works by Holly Van Hart

About

Artist reception: Friday, May 11, 2018, 6pm – 8pm

Exhibition duration: May 5 – June 15, 2018

KATHERYN   HOLT

Mixed Media

Katheryn Holt paints memory. Her abstract paintings are infused with half-remembered landscapes. She has been documenting her interior and exterior life through painting since she was 4 years old. Growing up on Hermosa Beach, Los Angeles, in the 1950s and 1960s, her frame of visual references was formed both by horizon lines extending across a seemingly endless Pacific Ocean and the cultural influences of post-World War 2 America. While the ocean sky reflected for her endless cloud-like possibilities of escape to imagined space and distant unknown places beyond, the constraints of growing up in the McCarthy era and the decade of rebellion that followed created the push and pull of her graphic design and painting style that has continued throughout her creative life.

Destination and disappearance are her running themes. The need for escape conjoins with a desire for a sense of stability and home, expressing itself in her imaginary dreamscape paintings through techniques of layering rich transparent oil color over silkscreened text from television scripts her father wrote and elusive photo imagery from her mother’s magazines of the day. Although the paintings are grounded by line and narrative imagery, a strong sense of movement and passage of time is never far from her compositions.

Recently this thesis has begun to manifest in her work through painterly depictions of disappearing land and sea masses caused by global warming.  The lifetime theme of memory and loss of place continues to animate and shift both hers and the viewer's visual identification of what is real and what is imagined in the world today.

Holt studied painting at the University of Southern California and graduated with a B.F.A. from Art Center College of Design. She taught at New York’s School of Visual Arts, has won awards from the Society of Illustrators, and was included in American Illustrator and Outstanding American Illustrators.

She has exhibited in many solo and group shows, including eight shows at Tria Gallery, New York; national juried competitions including the San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art, the Santa Cruz Art League, and the Bolinas Museum; and was featured in a recent display in the windows of Saks Fifth Avenue in San Francisco. She won first place at the American Pastel Society and is part of the permanent collection in the Kunstmuseum, Hollfeld, Germany. Her work has been shown in New York, Germany, Texas, Georgia, Colorado, and California.    

HOLLY VAN HART
Mixed Media

Holly Van Hart was born in New York City. She received, BS from Rutgers University and MS from Stanford University.  She currently resides and creates her work in Saratoga, CA.   

Van Hart’s work explores her fascination with the limitless opportunities we have in our lives. Images of abstracted forests, trees, fields, and flowers are used to symbolize abundance and the generation of new life and new ideas. Each of her painting is a journey, requiring many layers of paints, and much inspection and introspection over a period of months.

Van Hart is an internationally exhibited artist Her paintings have won Grand Prize at the California Statewide Painting Competition and Best of Houzz. Van Hart has had solo exhibitions at the Triton Museum of Art, University of California San Francisco, and Stanford University.

Her work is represented by fine art galleries across the United States. Her paintings are in the collections of CxOs and other top executives of LinkedIn, Oracle, PwC, Roche, Adobe Systems, Hewlett Packard, Cisco, Google, Airware, Xilinx, Texas Instruments, Silver Lake, TCV, Stanford University and more.

The Huffington Post, ABC News, Professional Artist Magazine, The Monthly, San Jose Mercury News, Examiner, Silicon Valley ‘Talk Art’ TV, and Houzz have all featured Van Hart's work.

About Desta Gallery

Desta Gallery is a contemporary fine art gallery in San Anselmo, California focusing on the beauty of the creative arts, featuring established and emerging artists, while highlighting socially relevant themes of our times. The Gallery showcases paintings, photography, sculptures and ceramics. The gallery hosts artist receptions, poetry readings, speaking engagement and art workshops with the idea of connecting communities, artists and collectors in an atmosphere that inspires creativity and stimulates intellectually. To learn more, please visit www.destagallery.com.