The Existential Gravity of Artistry
Julia Holden’s exhibition The Artist engages with the question of how to portray the profound complexity of artistic process, in a cultural context wherein artists and the role that the arts play in culture seems to be less and less recognised by politicians and our governing institutions.
The 19 portraits and one self-portrait comprising this work are luminous with the deep respect Holden has for the far-ranging contributions artists make to cultural life.
It’s common knowledge that in Aotearoa today the living conditions of artists are worsening, with the average salary of a professional artist in Aotearoa significantly less (as in nearly half) of that of an equally educated professional, with funding opportunities significantly reduced by the current government. In such a setting, how can we advocate for the vital role art plays in our daily lives – and ensure that the profound and complex creative ecosystem that exists in Aotearoa can be protected and strengthened into the future? Holden seeks to make evident the roles artists play in daily life through dynamic portraits that fuse sculpture, performance, painting and photography. Her portraits are simultaneously in deep relationship with time through their performative development, and a suspension of time in their instantiation as large format photographic prints.
To create this exhibition, Holden has collaborated with 19 artists (as well as herself) to create sculptural portraits, simultaneously centering the living, breathing body and the atemporal character – the portraits shimmer with a sense of the contribution the artists make in their discipline, concentrated through the symbolism of specific objects chosen by each artist in rich collaborative exchange – a baker with his singular bread, architectural collaborators with their Cardrona Cabin, the poet with her book, the photographer with camera, the comedian with an armful of absurd toy kittens. These are people who house us, who move us, whose artistry brings colour, form, joy and meaning to the world.
Holden’s action portraits capture the existential gravity and deep vulnerability of being a maker in the play of darkness and light, otherworldliness and intimacy. Composer John Psathas, for example, is represented with a music score that cascades over his shoulder, the music notes a kind of clothing, a kind of protection. This sense of care runs through each portrait, as Holden wrestles with the question of how to bring recognition to the vital role artists play in all of our lives.
The setting of each image evokes how, at some stage, it’s likely that almost every artist meets that destabilizing moment where they don’t know if they’ll be able, ever again, to make meaningful and original work. The weight of doubt can be colossal. These portraits glow with the dedication, spirit, care and conviction required by a serious art practice – a sense that the subject of each portrait goes beyond the sensible for their craft, and what they bring back brings essential fire and life to the culture of Aotearoa.
Although the prints that Holden exhibits have a sense of formality and timelessness, the process to create them is a live-art performance in itself. How to amplify the inner world beneath a creative practice? How to make intangible worlds of technique, commitment and practice evident? After days of intense preparation, an intensive negotiation of sculpture, painting and photography occurs with the portrait subject becoming the literal canvas. In past exhibitions Holden’s portraiture process has been a performance in itself. It’s unusual for contemporary visual artists to share the vulnerability of their process with onlookers. The fact she does so speaks to Holden’s ability to bring the often intangible world of the artist into visibility. In The Artist, Julia Holden creates a testimony to creative practitioners and the dynamic contributions they make to cultural life.
