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To place an order for any item on this page please read the instructions at the bottomof this page.
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| Chico Dormido, 1998
From the series Camaras Ocultas Ed of 50 9" x 11.75", $300 12.2" x 16", $400 |
Chico Flotante, 1995
From the series Suenos Playeros Ed of 50 5.5" x 12", $300 8.5" x 18", $400 |
El Descubrimiento, 1999
From the series Suenos Playeros Ed of 50 6.75" x 12.25", $300 10" x 18", $400 |
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| Fuegos II, 1999
From the series Seres Santos Ed of 50 9.5" x 12", $300 12.2" x 15.2", $400 |
La Camara, 2000
From the series Camaras Ocultas Ed of 50 9.5" x 11.5", $300 12.2" x 15", $400 |
La Cava, 1998
From the series Suenos Playeros Ed of 50 4.5" x 12.25", $300 7" x 18", $400 |
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| La Galeria de San Juan,
1998
From the series Seres Santos Ed of 50 7.25" x 12.25", $300 10" x 17.2", $400 |
La Mujer Dormida, 1998
From the series Suenos Playeros Ed of 50 5.5" x 12", $300 8.5" x 18", $400 |
Ojitos y Mas, 1999
From the series Camaras Ocultas Ed of 50 7.25" x 12.25", $300 10.5" x 17.5", $400 |
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| Pleasure Faire, 1999
From the series Seres Santos Ed of 50 6.75" x 12", $300 10" x 15.5", $400 |
Tras el Cristal, 2000
From the series Camaras Ocultas Ed of 50 6" x 12", $300 9" x 17.75", $400 |
Xolotol, 1999
From the series Seres Santos Ed of 50 8" x 12", $300 12" x 17.5", $400 |
There are 31 related images in the current collected series of prints that Hugh Holland has completed as of January, 2001. The overall title is "Barrio Gotico" (Gothic Quarter), but they are divided into categories, according to the spirit or subjects that connect them, such as "Seres Santos" (Sacred Beings), "Sueños Playeros" (Beach Dreams), or "Camaras Ocultas" (Secret Chambers). Most of his titles are in Spanish, as they were started and mostly completed in Mexico where he resided for over ten years.When first viewing a Holland print, one is struck by a deceptively seductive calm and gentleness, and the sense of direct communication from the heart; but there's more; the peacefulness rides on the edge of terror. The terror is what we of the civilized world have buried deeply, but it's always available for awakening by a true seer.
Working with his photo archive (his palette) of various locations, landscapes, buildings or rooms, and the images of young native laborers or those participating in religious rituals, their poses mostly unselfconscious activity or rest from work, he selects elements from various photographs, creates new landscapes, imagination spaces, stretching or shrinking elements to fit his new reality composed on a computer monitor. Then figures are added to inhabit his constructed reality, adjusted to naturalistic foreground or background size, carefully colored, and the lighting, the shadows, the moods of daylight or night are added . All are believable, yet exist only on a disk. When made tangible as an archival giclée print on heavy rough watercolor paper, they glow astoundingly. Real . . . disturbing . . . never merely surrealist, but unsolvable symbolist works of great complexity . . . visions.
Even a simple straight-forward portrait of a naked youth, an agreeably beautiful subject, presents us with conflicts . . . we of an imperial civilization . . . for when we see such a person with an undivided self, gazing openly at us with an untroubled simplicity, we come to doubt our superiority. Confronted so, we are made hollow by natural truths, and suspect that perhaps the greatest thing we have to fear is civilization itself.
Holland's work imaginatively leads us to self-inspection. What is the price of leaving even thorned paradises to become a mere digit, just one more package in the frozen food section of the world? He accomplishes this, not by attacking what we are, but by showing us an alternative. Make no mistake, these are not dreamy Edens, the stuff of commerce, but are places of the heart where death is real, but is balanced by the easy sensuality of life. Complex. Direct. Warm.
Above all, they are about the supernatural that is alive and present, although usually unseen in our censored minds. This is the stuff of true religion, captured as it is lived and practiced by the subjects interpreted in Holland's prints. Death and sexuality are not outlaws, but part of the natural scheme.
His colors are mostly earth tones, sometimes carefully balanced by a delicate violet area, or aura, a flash of white, and deep shadows. When an outdoor scene, the blue sky or green sea seem as gentle as the shades of sand. Ocean flows to shore and becomes a beach with a mysterious figure floating in the sand as if it were water. And then there is fire . . . raw, bright red. A religious procession at night. Youngsters carrying a large crucifix on which lies another youth. They proceed out of a bursting of flames, and from a side street, a second pilgrimage marches to join the first.
They are about sacrificed saints who are very much alive and alert, nearly smiling. About children who learn the mysteries from their older brothers and workers; and about intimate friends who share a secret chamber. . . a shadowed room.
There are two images of a boy swimming in fire. Or is he made of fire? These are echoes of eternity that reveal the visionary. Are they human? Are they divine? They are beauty, and function as in native American (Passamaquoddy) understanding: "For we are the stars. For we sing. For we sing with our light. For we are birds made of fire. For we spread our wings over the sky. Our light is a voice. We cut a road for the soul for it's journey through death."
Holland's visionary images seem to hold in them the uncensored natural, the supernatural, and terror. But the terror may be simply what we bring when we see what is ordinarily hidden . . . an unveiled view of what is.
— Tom Pain
Hugh Holland Hugh Holland is an artist who has been living and traveling and photographing in Mexico for the last 15 years. There he developed a fascination for the colors and flavors of life in a spanish colonial context, incorporating such things as catholic iconography, colonial ruins, and pensive, romantic figures in his pictures.
Five years ago, he began to use the computer as his medium of choice, painting with picture elements, and fashioning collages by combining photos. Composite pictures emerged that were, in effect, very sensual, sometimes erotic, narratives.
He grew up in Oklahoma, and then spent the next twenty years in California, working in the interior design business, always photographing as an avocation. From the first, he liked to tone and tint the photographs, make collages, and alter them with other media. Then, with the advent of digital techniques, vast new areas of possibilities were opened up.
Now he lives on the Northwestern US coast, and is in the process of refining the body of work, and adding to it.
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