Sparring with Hares Painting

Landscape painter Holland focuses on linking the River Eachaig in the west of Scotland to the ceremonial landscape of Wiltshire to create a body of work which explores aspects of abstraction and reportage. Moving beyond a landscape’s immediate appearance Holland evokes a state of mystery through a sense of self in relation to place through a process of creation and deconstruction. Two places merge into one another as a dialogue between initial expressionism and a later abstract minimalism emerges. Born in Lancashire in 1980, Holland first studied at St Mary’s Collage in Southampton and went down the route of Illustration studying at University Of West England, Bristol. It was at UWE that Holland became interested in Journalistic Reportage which developed as he explored what he saw around him. On leaving University Holland had realised that Illustration was not to be his main passion as he found himself indulging his creativity in landscape and figurative painting which incorporated aspects of abstraction. The ceremonial landscape and archaeological interest of Wiltshire became particularly interesting as a possible theme to explore under the guise of Reportage, and over time Holland began to explore his own time line within a landscape haunted by the mystery of it’s past inhabitants who we have disconnected from. A yearly trip to the West Coast of Scotland which initially involved a friends invitation to fish a time share on The River Eachaig in Bute and Argyle became an pivotal moment and as the years went by he found himself painting a changeable weather environment completely at odds to the landscape of Wiltshire. Holland had researched many theories about how some of the monuments in Wiltshire were visited during key times as a ceremonial pilgrimage from one place to another, particularly the theory that some rivers were used to travel between monuments, these rivers can be seen from the modern perspective as metaphors for the journey through life so the river theme, colours and motifs of Scotland developed into the circular monumental geometry of the Wiltshire landscape.