Philip Martin Gallery is pleased to present "Song," a solo exhibition of new paintings by Canadian-born, Athens, GA-based artist, Holly Coulis. Holly Coulis's new oil-on-linen works reveal basic truths about paintings, what it feels like to look at them, make them and be engaged in their magic.
For over twenty years, Holly Coulis has worked to distill a kind of essence in her work. Like Italian artist Giorgio Morandi, or Canadian painter David Milne, Coulis has built in her practice, which has drawn over the years on portraiture, landscape and still-life, a terminology of line, color, shape, touch and paint materiality that is not only visually thrilling, but also fundamentally evocative. Coulis invites the viewer into a conversation with the terms of the art object. What are the colors in her pictures doing? What does the line-work delineate? How does the touch of Coulis's brush, velvety in flat areas, stuttering at other moments into linear, looping vectors, build the motion and depth of pictorial space?
These questions are only answered in the viewer's own act of looking. Writing on Swiss master Paul Klee, British artist Bridget Riley notes, "Every painter starts with elements - lines, colors, forms - that are essentially abstract in relation to the pictorial experience that can be created with them.” Coulis comments, "I am starting to become most interested in the abstract elements, how the lines intersect and weave and the places that open up for color." She notes, "I create the language and then it feeds on itself... You find an answer, and then you find another problem.”
Holly Coulis's works enlist wit and precision, an openness to emotion, and an awareness of the particularities of one's personal vision. Holly Coulis situates the viewer in relation to their own personal experience. 21st-century individuals in a mass media globalized consumer society, we are at the same time in some sense always making our own way. Coulis's work hints at the energy of Japanese 70s Pop, for example, while also calling to mind the contemplative stillness of a work by Brice Marden. Isolation has long been considered a means by which to build interior clarity; engagement with others enables the communication on which we thrive. Through the one-on-one encounter at the heart of the art object, Holly Coulis invites looking and feeling, expressing, thinking and experiencing via a pictorial container of endless possibility.
Holly COULIS (b. 1968, Toronto, Canada) received her BFA from Ontario College of Art and Design (Toronto, Canada) in 1995 and her MFA from School of the Museum of Fine Arts (Boston, MA) in 1998. Holly Coulis’s recent solo and group exhibitions include Philip Martin Gallery (Los Angeles, CA); Klaus von Nichtssagend Gallery (New York, NY); Kasmin Gallery (New York, NY); Thailand Biennale, Pimamthip Art Gallery (Pak Chong District, Nakhon Ratchasima Province); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); Simon Lee (London, UK); Cooper Cole (Toronto, Canada); University of Georgia (Athens, GA); Atlanta Contemporary (Atlanta, GA); Massachusetts College of Art and Design (Boston, MA); SARDINE Gallery (Brooklyn, NY); Paramó Gallery (Guadalajara, Mexico); El Museo de los Pintores Oaxaqueños (Oaxaca, Mexico); Galleria d'Art Moderna (Milan, Italy); The Bruce High Quality Foundation (New York, NY); and Leo Koenig (New York, NY). Coulis’ work is included in the collections of the Blanton Museum of Art (Austin, TX); Fidelity Investments (Boston, MA); Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art (Overland Park, KS); OZ Art Northwest Arkansas (Bentonville, AR); Rollins College (Orlando, FL); and UT Southwestern Medical Center (Dallas, TX). Her work has been reviewed in publications such as Artforum, Art in America, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, Flaunt Magazine, Hyperallergic, and FT Magazine. Coulis lives and works in Athens, GA.
Holly Coulis' exhibition of new works, "Song," is on view March 22 - April 19, 2025, with an opening reception Saturday, March 22 from 5-7 PM. Contact the gallery for details.
Philip Martin Gallery is open Wednesday - Saturday from 11-5. For additional images, or information please email info@philipmartingallery.com, or call 323-507-2037. Philip Martin Gallery is located at 3342 Verdugo Road, Los Angeles, CA 90065 in the Glassell Park neighborhood of Los Angeles.
