About the Artist
Kim Holl
Artist's Statement
Kim Holl is a plein air painter because she enjoys the challenges of painting outside on location. Unlike studio painting, there is a continuous change in the elements of light and shadow created by the passage of time, and how those relate to the landscape and the specific motif chosen for that session. When she works, she can literally loose track of time, only the changing shadows reminding her of the passage of time.
In her work, the environment serves as an inspiration rather than exact recording of nature. What looks beautiful to the eye, does not necessarily translate well into a painting. It has taken Kim a long time to learn to simplify what she sees and break down the specific components of a landscape that made her stop and say “Wow, that’s beautiful”. It is okay to leave things out, or add things to help complete a composition.
Kim enjoys the mental gymnastics involved in searching for and deciding upon the compositional structure and bones for a motif of a successful painting. There is a degree of problem solving to look at a landscape and transfer a three dimensional scene into a two dimensional surface. Kim also enjoys simply working with color as she mixes the paint to achieve the right value, chroma, temperature all while maintaining color harmony.
When Kim paints, she feels she is no longer an observer of a scene, but rather has become part of that scene. She gets a better sense of place when painting. Painting forces her understand the details of the environment rather than simply viewing nature. Kim needs to study the light, shadows, color relationships, contrasts and subtle tonal changes that she would otherwise pass right by and miss.
Recently, Kim has begun painting studio and still life paintings. The technique and process she employs is referred to “alla prima”, meaning that the painting is done is one sitting. She applies the same principles of massing and simplification used in the plein air technique to her indoor work. She attempts to simplify the compositional information to it’s essential basics. Through working indoors, Kim has been able to pay closer attention to values, color intensity and temperature.
www.kimholl.com
