Robin Holtom

*STOP PRESS*

Exhibition of paintings, prints and sculpture
by Robin Holtom

with

Selena di Girolamo and Janet Harding
as part of South East Open Studios at

THE CELLAR

41b Marina, St. Leonards, TN38 0BU
(entrance at the back of threshers)
01424 200451

Private view 6.00 pm ’till late Friday 6th June 2008
Exhibition continues until 22nd June, 11.00 am to 6.00 pm

——

You are invited to an exhibition of paintings
at
Gallery 54

54 Shepherd Market
Mayfair
London W1Y 7HP

9th to 15th June 2008
10.00 am to 8.00 pm
(10.00 am to 2.00 pm Sunday)

Private View
Monday 9th June 6.00 pm ’till 8.00 pm

Phone (during exhibition) 0207 491 7322 or 01424 200451

Click here to see the paintings

—

An appreciation
by Peter Rossiter

Robin Holtom has found the inspiration for his landscapes at home in St. Leonards, East Sussex, in S.W. Wales, and abroad in Italy and the South of France. The paintings also reveal an interior world of the studio (in St. Leonards or Tuscany), usually filled with the artist’s model, a still-life or just a section of a room seen from an odd angle. Holtom is also an accomplished artist in other fields, the drawing and thinking that lies behind his figures show a sculptor’s grasp of their essential forms, while in the fluidity and subtlety of the handling of his colours can be seen the lessons learned from the silk screen works.

The territory is familar, Matisse springs readily to mind, Holtom shares the urge to return to “purity of means”. The comparison is unavoidable but it is not the slavish similiarity of a weak imitation. Holtom has been drawn by his own inner necessity to take the same direction as Matisse took, or Cezanne indicated, and then he moves on to find his own way forward.

Above all Holtom’s work is informed by a strong taste for colour. A taste which verges on the edge of hedonism but is held in place by a classical sense of appropriate form and structure. The colours demand our attention on a planimetric, or almost heraldic level, but the drawing holds this tendency in control. A nude form, or the shapes of fields, or foofs, act as the clothing or frame for plays of colour to live and dance and hold their own. The nudes are often accompanied by their own introspective reflections in the studio mirror, their classicized and rather cool poise mitigated by touch of sensuality.

In Holtom’s work I find pictures that will definately last and promise to respond well to being lived with, like a good book they will to some extent “read us” as we live our lives around them and they are also strong enough to demand that we keep looking at them fresh to find new bits in them, and ourselves.

Curriculum Vitae

Born 1944. Trained at Chelsea School of Art and the Royal College of Art. Associate of the Royal Society of British Sculptors. Taught art in Colleges and Adult Education Institutes before establishing residential courses in Wales. Currently teaches in Spain and Italy but otherwise paints and sculpts full time. Listed in “Artists working in Britain since 1945”. Residency in Fondacion Valparaiso, Spain 2000.

Recent solo exhibitions.

1995
Oriel Contemporary, London.
1996
Touring exhibition Cardigan, Cardiff and Aberystwyth.
Ozten Zeki Gallery, London.
1997
Ramsgate Library Gallery
Oriel Contemporary, London
1998
Ozten Zeki Gallery, London
Peter’s Barn Gallery, Petworth
1999
St David’s Hall, Cardiff
Bank St Gallery, Sevenoaks
2000
Star Gallery, Lewes
Bank St Gallery, Sevenoaks
2002
Roche Gallery, Rye
2004
Star Gallery, Lewes (January 2004)
Woodbine Contemporary, Spalding (June 2004)
Open Studio, St Leonards (September 2004)
2005
White Rock Theatre gallery, Hastings,
Open Studios, Coastal Currents

Work usually available at Stratton Gallery, Hastings, Paddon and Paddon, Eastbourne, Neville Gallery, Canterbury, Woodbine Contemporary, Lincs, Gallery Duncan Terrace, Islington etc

Also shared show at Arndean Gallery Cork St (2004, 2005). ”Slow Art” Soco Gallery Hastings etc.

Work shown at Museum of Modern Art, Wales, London Art Fair, Twentieth Century Art Fair, Affordable Art Fairs, Chelsea Art Fair, Olympia Art Fair and Bath Art Fair.

Robin Holtom
41B Marina
St Leonards on Sea,TN38 OBU
Tel: +44 (0) 1424 200 451

Download CV (word doc)