Joseph Holtzman at Nina Johnson Gallery

September 23rd - January 15th, 2022 Downstairs Gallery
Joey/Lisa Puppet Show, 2017, oil on marble in artist’s frame, 32 x 39.25 in

Holtzman’s ghost-like paintings rendered on stone surfaces elicit a haunted sense of memory in the viewer. The long-lived spirits of both fictional and historic realms co-mingle. The smooth nature of the stone allows the viewer to feel as though the paint is moving in real-time, sliding across a picture plane in an animated gesture, where the images drift onto their monolithic backings. Absorbing them feels like a dream.

The artist left his job as an art publisher to concentrate on his art. His home in New York is filled with numerous works ranging from textiles, paintings, historic objects, and sculptures, all serving as a uniquely informed art history backdrop from which his work is produced. For the exhibition, Holtzman has also included two recently completed sculptures.

Joseph Holtzman (b. 1957 in Baltimore, MD) lives and works near Chatham, NY. Recent solo exhibitions include Six Recent Paintings, Parker Gallery (off-site presentation in New York, NY) (2020) and Six Recent Paintings, Bel Ami, Los Angeles, CA (2018). Select group exhibitions include Strange, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2019) and Color, Form, Unicorn: Recent Acquisitions, Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, Berkeley, CA (2018).

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