ABBA FINE ART presents Debra Holt’s solo exhibition of inspirational photography and video installation at Photo LA. The acclaimed contemporary international fair of photo-based art, video, and new media on view January 13 - 17, 2011.
The Pulse of Nature
Written by Peter Frank, Art Critic and Curator
Debra Holt’s “keenness for the earth’s natural elements and its atmospheric changes” bears out in these meditative portrayals of naturally occurring phenomena – phenomena we take for granted, but appreciate anew when our attention is directed at once into and around them by the kind of intensity an artist like Holt brings to the task of seeing.
There is a very particular kind of “mindfulness” at work here: instead of disappearing, the subject burgeons – transforming, to be sure, but becoming ever more present, almost iconic, its volume both obdurate and embracing, its space intimate and infinite at once. Holt’s is a Western kind of transcendence, more Gnostic than Zen; it has mystical resonance, but apotheosizes rather than obscures the object of contemplation. At best, the viewer becomes one with the viewed, not with the unviewable. Holt does not simply privilege the eye, but relies with a fervency unusual even for a visual artist on the human propensity for looking, rewarding our gaze with apparitions of dreamlike proportions and impossible, but suddenly real, sensuality. Hers are realizations of a peculiarly optical ecstasy, not merely lovely or desirable, but so irresistibly alluring that the pleasure is instantaneous and surrender takes place at the moment seduction begins.
"I am nature,” Jackson Pollock once protested, trying to convince his interlocutor that, as a human being, he was not outside nature looking in but inside nature looking all around. If anyone’s art now drives home that point, Holt’s does. Her works, most recently – and vividly – her photographs, show us nature from the inside – and pull us back into nature before we can give it a second thought. In Debra Holt’s art, we are one with nature.
Please view additional artworks by Debra Holt at: http://www.debraholt.com
A native South Florida artist, Debra Holt was born in West Palm Beach, and grew up in Miami, Florida. After graduating with a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Florida International University, she moved to New York and received a Masters of Fine Arts from Pratt Institute. Living in New York City for a many years influenced the direction of the art works and opened the artist's eyes to many concepts and media. Holt has developed the freedom of expression to create art works without boundaries and to explore conceptual ideas with the flexibility of media and content. With this freedom, as a multi media artist, Debra Holt has employed various media to convey the concept she wishes to explore. The artist’s extensive travel experiences in both United States and Abroad have influenced the rich development of unique and creative artistic expressions through the knowledge of art history and the social, cultural and economic influences of different countries. Debra Holt has exhibited her work in both New York and Miami galleries and museums and is currently represented by Abba Fine Art located in the Wynwood Art District. She is the recipient of many awards and grants including the National Sculpture Society Grant, The Nancy McGrath Award, Lucrezia Bori Foundation Prize, Albert H. Hallgarten Traveling Fellowship, and the Artist’s Fellowship Grant.
For further information about this exhibition or for a private viewing, please contact the gallery at (305) 576-4278 or via email at art@abbafineart.com. For press inquiries and image requests, please contact ABBA FINE ART.