by Jim Holland

oil; 29" x 41.5"

Jim Holland was born in 1955 in Schenectady NY and from an early age showed an interest in art. As a boy he could spend hours flipping through his parents' art history books and more drawing. In high school he took up photography which he credits with sharpening his observation and composition skills.While in college he began painting with acrylics and received some valuable instruction in watercolors.

Around this same time Jim made a couple of road trips with college friends to Cape Cod. As he began painting scenes he had encountered there, other subjects and techniques that he had been working with began to give way. He started refining the elements that would become his style, marked by stripped-down realistic depiction and a sense of solitude often found in the work of Edward Hopper - an artist for whom Jim has had lifelong admiration.

He works from photographs and is dedicated to the core of realism they afford him. There will often be some quick underpainting, but then he says "I'll spend hours mixing paints on my palette and establishing an overall color and tonal scheme. Sometimes I feel I am more aptly called a colorist rather than a painter."

The enduring themes in Holland's paintings are the light and space near the ocean. "It's an expansive and peaceful place to me. The colors can be brilliant or nearly monochromatic. A beached catboat or light slanting on clapboards and through windows, these are simple forms I find endlessly fascinating in how different light affects the mood."

Represented at Commercial Street: 508.349.9451

Watercolor