ANDREW HOLMQUIST
The Elysian FieldsLefebvre et Fils Gallery with Emma Gray HQ
Paris| October 20th - Dec 5th 2022
24 Rue du bac Paris 75007
Elysian Park 7, oil on canvas, 50 x 60 inches, 2022
Lefebvre et Fils and Emma Gray HQ are delighted to present “The Elysian Fields” an exhibitions of paintings and ceramic sculptures by LA based artist Andrew Holmquist who is currently at The Residency program in Versailles . “The Elysian Fields” borrows its title from multiple references but initially from ‘Elysian Park’ in East Los Angeles - a sun drenched vista and parcel of land that Holmquist frequently walks and paints in. It also references the ‘Elysian Fields’ which were according to Homer, located on the western edge of the Earth by the Stream of Okeanos. In Greek mythology ‘Elysium’ is the paradise to which heroes whom the Gods conferred mortality were sent. The fields have also been known as “The fortunate isles” and “The isles of the blessed,” lastly and perhaps appropriately connecting the dots from LA to Ancient Greece and Paris , the famous field of shopping dreams - ‘The Champs Elysees’ share the Elysian Fields translation and can be located just a mile or so away Lefebvre et Fils Gallery.
Andrew Holmquist presents a set of 6 landscape plein-air paintings from Elysian and Mount Washington parks combined with 5 ceramic sculptures inspired by the shapes of the trees and brushwork in the paintings. The works joyfully play on the traditions of the respective mediums, the blurring between them, and their ability to depict the sweeping grandeur of nature in abstract and artificial ways.
This is the second exhibition this year with Emma Gray HQ. Ecstatic Time which opened on February 2022 received an artforum Must See and a review by Shana Nys Dymbrot
Andrew Holmquist (b. 1985) explores the unsettled nature of contemporary identity as seen through the lens of the free-wheeling present. Drawing on myriad cultural references, from the density and scale found in history painting to the singular and tender moments found in intimate-scale forms such as the miniature, Holmquist's works manifest as realizations of embodied landscapes; hyperreal scenes of imag- ination, and personal memory. These expressions unfurl in imaginative bursts of color made visible in paintings that span the gamut from the abstract to the figurative; from the innately detailed to the perfor- matively gestural. Born into a creative family, the artist began making art at a young age, producing an extensive body of work from ceramic and sculpture; drawing and printmaking, through to his signature paintings, which vary in material and texture. At the heart of these multitudinous vistas is an exploratory sensibility around the future of queer spaces. In the age of Instagram frames and distributed desire, Holmquist seeks to ask: what do the multiple layered spaces of otherness look like? In Holmquist's multi- dimensional spaces, one is witness to amorphous bodies, deconstructed into cellular forms; contoured limbs that appear and disappear; figures, which at first seem stable become formally unspooled, sugges- tive of an interiority--a body beyond the realm of the human, a metaphor for a hyperlinked, accelerating, technological age. At times ebullient, while at others, laden with melancholy, Holmquist's adventures in art speak to a wanting, longing, searching sense of a collective self.
Andrew is based in Los Angeles. Raised in Northfield, Minnesota, he moved to Chicago in 2003 to at- tend The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA (08) and MFA (14) and was awarded the Merit Scholarship, the Carrie Ellen Tuttle Fellowship, and the Luminarts Cultural Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship for young and promising artists in the Chicago region. Following his studies at SAIC, he relocated to Berlin, where he lived until relocating to L.A. in early 2019.
His work was included in the 2015 edition of th e biannual juried exhibition “Ground Floor” at the Hyde Park Art Center, which serves as a survey of the best work created by MFA degree recipients in the Chicago area, and in 2016, he was invited to participate in the Vancouver Arts Festival, where his work was featured in the exhibition Drama Queer, examining the queer perspective in contemporary art. 2017 saw his paintings included in the exhibition “Eternal Youth” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chica- go.
Andrew’s work is in the permanent collections of Rachofsky Collection at The Warehouse, Dallas, the Illinois State Museum, the Providence College Collection, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, as well as the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, The Pro- gressive Art Collection, the BMO Harris Art Collection, the Fidelity Art Collection, and the First Midwest Bank Collection. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, Los Angeles, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Nashville, Williamstown, Vancouver, and Berlin. His work will be featured in the forthcoming book, Internet/Art: The First Thirty Years, written by Omar Kholeif and published by Phaidon.
Andrew Holmquist presents a set of 6 landscape plein-air paintings from Elysian and Mount Washington parks combined with 5 ceramic sculptures inspired by the shapes of the trees and brushwork in the paintings. The works joyfully play on the traditions of the respective mediums, the blurring between them, and their ability to depict the sweeping grandeur of nature in abstract and artificial ways.
This is the second exhibition this year with Emma Gray HQ. Ecstatic Time which opened on February 2022 received an artforum Must See and a review by Shana Nys Dymbrot
Andrew Holmquist (b. 1985) explores the unsettled nature of contemporary identity as seen through the lens of the free-wheeling present. Drawing on myriad cultural references, from the density and scale found in history painting to the singular and tender moments found in intimate-scale forms such as the miniature, Holmquist's works manifest as realizations of embodied landscapes; hyperreal scenes of imag- ination, and personal memory. These expressions unfurl in imaginative bursts of color made visible in paintings that span the gamut from the abstract to the figurative; from the innately detailed to the perfor- matively gestural. Born into a creative family, the artist began making art at a young age, producing an extensive body of work from ceramic and sculpture; drawing and printmaking, through to his signature paintings, which vary in material and texture. At the heart of these multitudinous vistas is an exploratory sensibility around the future of queer spaces. In the age of Instagram frames and distributed desire, Holmquist seeks to ask: what do the multiple layered spaces of otherness look like? In Holmquist's multi- dimensional spaces, one is witness to amorphous bodies, deconstructed into cellular forms; contoured limbs that appear and disappear; figures, which at first seem stable become formally unspooled, sugges- tive of an interiority--a body beyond the realm of the human, a metaphor for a hyperlinked, accelerating, technological age. At times ebullient, while at others, laden with melancholy, Holmquist's adventures in art speak to a wanting, longing, searching sense of a collective self.
Andrew is based in Los Angeles. Raised in Northfield, Minnesota, he moved to Chicago in 2003 to at- tend The School of the Art Institute of Chicago where he received his BFA (08) and MFA (14) and was awarded the Merit Scholarship, the Carrie Ellen Tuttle Fellowship, and the Luminarts Cultural Foundation Visual Arts Fellowship for young and promising artists in the Chicago region. Following his studies at SAIC, he relocated to Berlin, where he lived until relocating to L.A. in early 2019.
His work was included in the 2015 edition of th e biannual juried exhibition “Ground Floor” at the Hyde Park Art Center, which serves as a survey of the best work created by MFA degree recipients in the Chicago area, and in 2016, he was invited to participate in the Vancouver Arts Festival, where his work was featured in the exhibition Drama Queer, examining the queer perspective in contemporary art. 2017 saw his paintings included in the exhibition “Eternal Youth” at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chica- go.
Andrew’s work is in the permanent collections of Rachofsky Collection at The Warehouse, Dallas, the Illinois State Museum, the Providence College Collection, the University of Illinois, the University of Chicago, the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection, as well as the JPMorgan Chase Art Collection, The Pro- gressive Art Collection, the BMO Harris Art Collection, the Fidelity Art Collection, and the First Midwest Bank Collection. He has had solo and group exhibitions in Chicago, Los Angeles, NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Nashville, Williamstown, Vancouver, and Berlin. His work will be featured in the forthcoming book, Internet/Art: The First Thirty Years, written by Omar Kholeif and published by Phaidon.
