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metaphor contemporary art
is pleased to present
HOLLY SEARS - Sightings,
new paintings and an installation.
Holly Sears begins her paintings with close observation of the natural world.
Depicting found bits of nature; earth, plants, sky, birds, animals, and
insects, culled from her backyard garden and her travels, she recombines these
shared phenomena into elaborately constructed, and highly personal tableaux.
Though her evocative painterly skill brings to mind Dutch Master artists of the
still life, hers are not their baroque visions. Rather, her paintings suggest the
gentle and persistent powers of nature that at times may escape our notice
tinged with a touch of Southern Gothic mystery. In her work Sears focuses her
keen attention, imagination, and naturalist's eye on intimate offerings, unknown
rituals, and moments of strange magic.
Natural offerings to the beauty of nature abound in world culture. Shinto,
the ancient Japanese tradition locates the deep soul of nature in certain
significant trees and stones. In Hawaii it is customary to grace particularly
beautiful places with offerings of food, flowers, or stones wrapped in Ti leaves.
Holly Sears evokes those traditions in her images of moments drawn from larger
stories with reverence for the beauty of our planet deep at their core. Her
paintings are quietly visionary offerings, richly realized dreams, fascinating
both for the mystery of their content and the beauty of their execution.
Born and educated in Virginia with an MFA from Virginia Commonwealth
University, Holly Sears has presented work at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts and
the Bergen Museum of Art and Science in New Jersey . She has three times been
awarded a fellowship from the Virginia Center for Creative Arts at Sweet Briar.
She has taught painting at Princeton and been a master printer at The Robert
Blackburn Studio. Her paintings are included in the Sidney and Francis Lewis
collection, and the corporate collection of ATT, among many other public and
private collections.
- Julian Jackson/Rene Lynch
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