Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications / Ridinghouse, Berlin, Paris and London 2014 With an essay by David Ryan
‘Central to Holyhead’s work is an exquisite sense of craft – and this is a word that, either much maligned or consciously foregrounded, needs some explanation and recuperation in relation to the specifics of Holyhead’s approach. Craft, in this sense, is not just a developed and accrued “technique” but also a much wider approach to the processes and contexts of making. It is what Richard Sennett has referred to as the “face-to-face relationship” that exists in the workshop between object, maker and audience, where the making not only shapes the object formally but also generates both meaning and value outside of it.’
D. Ryan, ‘Robert Holyhead – Paintings’, in Robert Holyhead, exh. cat., Berlin: Galerie Max Hetzler and Holzwarth Publications, 2014, p. 15
Publisher: Galerie Max Hetzler / Holzwarth Publications / Ridinghouse, Berlin, Paris and London Essay: David Ryan Publication date: 2014 Binding: Hardcover Dimensions: 29.5 x 24.5 x 1.3 cm Pages: 64 ISBN: 978-3-935567-74-9
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British painter Robert Holyhead (b. 1974) works mainly on delicate small-size formats covered with semi-translucent colours. Most of the time, traces of brushstrokes remain visible and form floating geometric shapes, while some parts of the canvas are left uncovered and oppose an immaculate white to the coloured variations. The elaborated edges of the shapes play with the balance between negative and positive spaces. The intimacy of this gestural fluidity comes from a precise and disciplined process devised by the artist both on his works on paper and paintings. ‘I pick up on things that are a little bit peculiar and that exist awkwardly in the world, that are already abstract. It's much more to do with seeing something which becomes abstract in my mind over time before becoming a motif in the studio or eventually a gesture or form in a painting. I'm not so sure how they come in or where they have come from. My work doesn't have any particular reference points outside or itself yet external influences creep in as I make it. As such, my painting presents both a type of personal language and some familiarity with the world.’ R. Holyhead, London, July 2010 in Robert Holyhead, Karsten Schubert and Ridinghouse, 2010
Artist page on maxhetzler.com
(catalogue)
Goethestraße 2/3, Berlin
2014
Exhibition page on maxhetzler.com
