"Light has become a central character in my work. Often there will be a light source, a stream of light that penetrates the entire dimension of the canvas. The light moves through the action in the painting, or the action is coming out of the stream of light. Those areas of chiaroscuro and high-intensity light are places of arousal. The pulsing light is like the body's energy—the pulsing of sex or the pulsing of the heart. During climax it feels like there's a bright light pouring out of me, like I'm going to explode. That's the kind of light energy I want to create in my paintings."
L uminous, mysteriously hypnotic and radiating a spiritual energy, Portrait of a Woman with Green Hair is emblematic of New York-based artist Loie Hollowell’s highly acclaimed oeuvre. Hollowell has beguiled audiences and critics around the world with her singular abstracted bodily landscapes that are simultaneously sensual and sacred, evoking the mystic energy of religious or symbolic iconography.
Characterized by radiant colors, simple geometric shapes and impeccably vibrating gradients that expand, contract, merge and converge, Hollowell's paintings straddle abstraction and figuration, painting and sculpture, articulating autobiographical themes and physical and psychological experiences such as sexuality, fertility, and childbirth. While the vibrant hues, vortex designs and geometric symmetry of Hollowell's work situate her within an important lineage of American artists such as Georgia O'Keefe and Judy Chicago who countered the 'pure' abstraction with references to the body, Hollowell's creation explores volume as much as texture and surface, elevating flat geometric abstraction into a singularly visceral and seductive sculptural sphere.
“This new body of work considers the act of trying to conceive as well as conception itself. By layering the concerns of painting on top of hand sculpted bodily surfaces, these shapely forms exist in a space between the illusoriness of painting and dimensionality of sculpture. The more t.mes I spend with these paintings, the more I realise how real, physical and complex this liminal space can become. To put the thoughts I have, about trying to conceive and becoming pregnant into my painting / sculpting language is an invitation to embrace the physicality and otherworldliness of that primal sexual act.”
In Portrait of a Woman with Green Hair, a tonal, convex shape pulsates a searing red, radiating energy and light and drawing the viewer’s gaze into the heart of the painting. At the bottom of Hollowell’s canvas, the artist includes her signature motif of the ogee shape, defined in a luminous yellow and orange, a dome shape which references her own body and notions of sensuality. The work is a mesmerising example of Hollowell’s abstracted sculptural paintings in which the artist reformulates the notion of the female nude, arousing intangible experiences and emotions particularly tied to the female condition.
「光成為了我作品中的主角，當中通常會有一個光源，光束穿透整個畫布空間。光會隨著畫作的動感而流轉，或者說動感是源自於光束。那些明暗對照強烈和尤為光亮的區域正是令人神往之處。光的律動如同身體的能量——性愛的擺動或心臟的躍動。高潮之際，我感覺有一道亮光彷彿從身體裡傾瀉而出，就像我將要綻裂一般。我想在繪畫中創造出這種光的能量。」
《綠髮女士肖像》閃爍著光芒，散發神秘的催眠力量，活現神采，是紐約藝術家蘿伊・霍洛韋爾其中一幅佳作代表。霍洛韋爾以獨特的抽象身體畫著稱，作品既性感又神聖，令人聯想起帶有宗教色彩的象徵符號，獲得世界各地觀眾和評論家的讚賞。
她的創作大多色彩明艷，以簡約的幾何圖案構成，層層遞進地營造出擴大和收縮、融合和交會的幻覺，洋溢極致趣味，可謂融會了抽象與具象、繪畫與雕塑，表達了自傳式主題，以及諸如性愛、受孕、分娩等身體和心理的經歷。作品中明亮的色調、漩渦設計和幾何對稱雖然使霍洛韋爾躋身美國重要的藝術派系——當中喬治亞・歐姬芙和朱迪・芝加哥等藝術家致力反抗指涉身體的「純粹」抽象，但是，霍洛韋爾的創作不單關注紋理質地和表面，還探索了體積，將平面的幾何抽象提升至著重真情實感的、誘人的雕塑領域，別樹一幟。
「這組新作是對於嘗試懷孕以及懷孕本身的尋思。畫面盡是豐滿圓滑、如雕塑般逐步堆砌、雕琢而成的線條和色塊，這些優美勻稱的形狀存在於繪畫的虛幻與雕塑的立體之間。耗費在這些畫作上的時間愈多，我就愈能意識到如此半虛半實的空間潛藏無限的真實感、物理性和複雜性。我將自己對於嘗試受孕以及懷孕的想法融入個人的繪畫／雕刻語言之中，旨在邀請觀者擁抱原始的交媾行為，它既是身體性的，也是超凡脫俗的。」
在《綠髮女士肖像》中，灼熱的紅色層次漸變，形成向外突出的形狀，律動如波，散發能量和光芒，將觀者的目光吸引到畫作的中心。在霍洛韋爾畫幅的底部，藝術家加入了其標誌性的蔥形飾圖案——一種圓拱形狀，指涉她自己的身體，以及性感的觀念——並以明亮的黃色和橙色呈現。霍洛韋爾的抽象雕塑畫重新闡述女性裸體的觀念，喚起了與女性相關的、一些難以言說的體驗及情感，此作堪稱範例，令人神往。