Banner artwork: Stormy by Berry Holz, spraypaint on hardboard, 40" x 24". (Cropped and reprinted for access+ENGAGE with the artist's permission)
About her paintings, Holz writes: "In my recent paintings (whether it looks like it or not) I've been thinking about uncertainty as to how a situation might turn out, and/or feeling like you're on your own & lost in the shuffle vs. feeling like you're not, and why that may be. The cumulative effect of focusing on these feelings within the medium i've been working still comes out fairly controlled-looking, calming, cute & innocent. I believe this is due, in large part to a big desire I have for happy compositional balance. Not everything ends up the way you fear it might or the way you hope it will, thematically or in terms of the worked-over final product. This can be good or bad. Hopefully it's mostly good."
About the artist: Berry Holz grew up in Norseland, outside of St. Peter, Minnesota. She studied Art History and Design at the University of Minnesota and has worked as an interior designer at Twin Cities architecture firms (as well as for IKEA for a spell) for years since. Self-taught (and self-motivated) as an artist, her outside-of-architecture-work turned to acrylic and collage a few years ago. After that, nature inspired color studies were the thing for a while when things were going along smoothly. Next, the simple anthropomorphic subject matters came back as personal narrative within the new style of working. Her process now is a low-tech "reverse stencil" method done with spray paint and layered stencils. Nothing fancy, but a little complicated.
Berry Holz's work was featured in Placement Gallery's recent Pure Pleasure pop-up retail shop for Art-A-Whirl, and now you can see and make inquiries about Berry Holz's work at spotArt Gallery in Minneapolis.
