L ick Lick in Orange and Blue is a sublime example of American artist Loie Hollowell’s abstracted body landscapes, executed in the same year as her first solo exhibition, AHHA at 106 Green in New York in 2015. Light pulses from the work’s central almond-shaped mandorla, a signature motif in Hollowell’s works, particularly her early works, that references the female anatomy—both a biographical expression of her own form and a universal symbol emanating a shared sensuality. An arresting, playful work, Hollowell alludes to the outline of a human face in Lick Lick in Orange and Blue, from which the viewer can make out a triangular nose, jutting lips and a protruding tongue that moves up and down as the abstracted form is repeated within the canvas. There is a distinct movement in the work, not only from the moving tongues, but also from the mesmerising interplay of light and shadow that creates the impression of an undulating rhythm that extends beyond the canvas and into the viewer’s space.

As exemplified by the present work, Hollowell’s unique geometric visual language of ogees, gentle fleshy curves, orbs, mandorlas and breasts create powerful, talismanic images that explore themes including sensuality, fertility and pregnancy. Here, a close inspection of the image reveals meticulously painted gestures that resemble body hair, solidifying the allusion to the bodily form. As described by Owen Duffy: “Emitting a sense of new-age unity, these painting-reliefs are sites of erotic liberation, astute formal explorations and talismanic icons. They are also Rorschach tests with sacred geometries, asking us what we see, and what we feel, from within our own bodies. Hollowell presents an aesthetics of pleasure without pain” (Owen Duffy, “Loie Hollowell Mother Tongue”, ArtReview, 1 January 2017, online). Lick Lick in Orange and Blue is a brilliant iteration of Hollowell’s expression of pleasure, especially in her earlier works in which she devised a distinct abstract aesthetic for the representation of different forms of intimacy and sexual pleasure: “As I aged and had more experiences with my body, I thought about it more abstractly, but also more personally. I wanted to express all kinds of intimacy: sex, orgasm, period, and ejaculation in a way that lets the most conservative viewer have an experience that might not be a sensual one but can still be something that’s explosive for the eyes” (the artist quoted in Mariana Fernandez, “Loie Hollowell’s Sensuous, Suggestive Paintings Provoke and Delight”, Flaunt, 4 August 2017, online). Demonstrative of how her work changes as her own body develops and goes through new experiences, her latest body of works explore the physical and psychological experiences of pregnancy, birth and postpartum, with breast spouting milk and dark voids that suggest the experience of childbirth.

Hollowell’s practice is situated in the lineage of the likes of Agnes Pelton, Georgia O’Keeffe and Judy Chicago. Commenting on Hollowell’s first exhibition, critic Genevieve Allison lauded: “Her unflinchingly direct paintings sublimate aspects of the female experience in compositions that are both landscapes and anatomical abstractions, echoing a long tradition of feminist painters who claimed the female body for their gender’s own demesne. Synthesising Judy Chicago’s hard-edge symbolism, Hilma af Klint’s diagrammatic visual language, and Georgia O’Keeffe’s sense of the iconographic, the fourteen paintings presented in Hollowell’s first exhibition here are powerfully referential of her forebears'' (Genevieve Allison, “Critics’ Picks New York- Loie Hollowell”, Artforum, 27 October 2016, online). Further, Hollowell is inspired by the California Light and Space Movement and the Neo-Tantric Indian artists of the sixties and seventies, particularly Gulam Rasool Santosh and one of his symMetricas l, brightly-coloured works that Hollowell came across on instagrams .

However, Hollowell, while drawing upon art historical precedents, creates a highly singular visual language, but one that has universal and far-reaching appeal: “Yet as an artist that draws heavily from historical painters, Hollowell’s work is simultaneously uncategorisable. It exists in limbo between abstraction and realism, between sculpture and painting, between the Californian Light and Space movement and East Coast Regional Landscape art” (Mariana Fernandez, “Loie Hollowell’s Sensuous, Suggestive Paintings Provoke and Delight”, Flaunt, 4 August 2017, online). Overall, her suggestive canvases have led her to exhibit in major cities like New York, Los Angeles, Amsterdam, Hong Kong and London, and her works can now be found in major permanent collects ions such as the Hirshhorn Museum, Los Angeles County Museum of Contemporary Art and the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami.

《舔 舔橙色和藍色》是美國藝術家洛伊・霍洛韋爾「抽象身體景觀畫」的絕妙佳構，作於2015年，同年，她在紐約106 Green畫廊舉辦了名為「AHHA」的首場個展。本作中心是一枚杏仁狀的神聖光輪「曼朵拉」（mandorla），光芒以它為原點向外層層綻放。「曼朵拉」是霍洛韋爾的標誌性元素，在早期作品中尤為常見，用於指涉女性的身體構造，除了是藝術家的自我表達，也是一個點明人類官能感受的符號。《舔舔橙色和藍色》是一幅玩味十足的作品，觀眾可以從中分辨出人臉的輪廓，不斷重複的抽象形體中可見三角形的鼻子、撅起來的嘴唇和伸出來上下彈動的舌頭。作品蘊含著一種獨特的韻律，這種韻律不但來自彈動的舌頭，還衍生自因明暗交替而產生的人臉波紋，它們起伏蕩漾，蔓延到畫布之外，滲入觀眾所處的空間。

一如本作，霍洛韋爾喜歡在畫中加入一種圓拱狀的蔥形飾，再以這種獨特的幾何視覺語彙融合柔和肉慾的曲線、球形、杏仁狀的「曼朵拉」和胸脯的形狀，組成護身符般強而有力的圖案，探討諸如感官享受、生育和受孕等主題。近看本作的畫面，我們可以發現形似身體毛髮的的細緻筆觸，更加證實了作品對人類身體的指涉。奧文・杜飛曾經這樣形容霍洛韋爾的作品：「這些浮雕般的畫作流露出一股新生代的整體性，象徵情慾的解放以及形式方面的探索，蘊藏著符咒般的神秘靈性。它們猶如畫著神聖幾何圖案的羅夏墨跡測驗，追問我們究竟從自己身體的內部看到什麼、感受到什麼。霍洛韋爾展示了一種無痛的愉悅美學」（奧文・杜飛，〈洛伊・霍洛韋爾：母語〉，《ArtReview》，2017年1月1日，網上版）。本作一如既往地記錄了霍洛韋爾對歡愉之情的演繹，在更早期的作品中，她常以一種與眾不同的抽象美學，詮釋各種私密之事和性愛的歡愉。「隨著年歲漸長，我對自己的身體亦愈加熟悉，因此能夠從更抽象、更個人的角度來看待它。我希望傳達出性愛、高潮、經期、射精等各種私密的事情，令就算是最保守的觀眾也能有所感受，即使可能與肉慾無關，但依然帶有強烈的視覺衝擊」（洛伊・霍洛韋爾，引述自瑪莉安娜・費南迪斯，〈洛伊・霍洛韋爾充滿暗示的性感畫作令人浮想聯翩、心生愉悅〉，《Flaunt》，2017年8月4日，網上版）。霍洛韋爾最新的作品展示了其身體的變化與前所未有的體驗，探討了懷孕、分娩和產後的生理及心理歷程，無論是溢出母乳的胸部還是深沉的虛空，都暗示著生育的經歷。

霍洛韋爾的創作風格與艾格妮斯・佩爾頓、喬治亞・歐姬芙、朱迪・芝加哥等女性藝術家一脈相承。藝評家桂妮薇芙・艾莉森在回顧霍洛韋爾的首場個展時稱讚道：「她的畫直截了當，毫不妥協，以同時具有風景與身體抽象元素的構圖，將女性感知與體驗的各個方面逐一升華，承襲了過往女性主義藝術家對身體自主權的歌頌。霍洛韋爾在第一場個人展覽中展出十四幅作品，它們糅合了朱迪・芝加哥的硬邊象徵主義、希爾瑪・阿芙・克林特那統計圖表般的視覺語彙、以及喬治亞・歐姬芙對圖像學的理解，反映出霍洛韋爾深受藝壇前輩的啟發」（桂妮薇芙・艾莉森，〈紐約評論家之選 — 洛伊・霍洛韋爾〉，《Artforum》，2016年10月27日，網上版）。此外，對霍洛韋爾影響巨大的流派還包括「加州光與空間運動」以及六、七十年代印度的「新怛特羅」藝術家，其中古蘭姆・拉蘇爾・桑托什（Gulam Rasool Santosh）的名字不可不知，因為霍洛韋爾曾在社交媒體instagrams 上見過一幅桑托什的作品，對稱的構圖與明麗的色澤，使她對之印象深刻。不過霍洛韋爾雖然從一眾名家身上汲取了豐富的靈感，但她仍開闢出屬於自己的獨特風格，而且廣受歡迎，深入人心。「即使霍洛韋爾是一位大量借鑑前人的藝術家，她的作品卻不可思議地無法歸類。它們在抽象與現實主義、雕塑與繪畫、『加州光與空間運動』與東岸風景畫派之間的灰色地帶徘徊不定」（瑪莉安娜・費南迪斯，〈洛伊・霍洛韋爾充滿暗示的性感畫作令人浮想聯翩、心生愉悅〉，《Flaunt》，2017年8月4日，網上版）。霍洛韋爾的作品曾在紐約、洛杉磯、阿姆斯特丹、香港及倫敦等大城市展出，而且見於不少大型藝術機構的永久收藏，包括赫希洪博物館、洛杉磯郡當代藝術博物館以及邁阿密當代藝術學院。