Art Basel Miami Beach 2015: Evan Holloway

Like medicine where as a doctor, my patients are at times my teachers, in the art world, my art advisory clients at times teach me about a new artist. That is the case for sculptor Evan Holloway whose work I first saw some years ago at the home of a major art collector client of mine. Evan Holloway’s Tree, Twig, and Mold sculptures were exhibited at the 2015 Art Basel Miami Beach at the booths of Xavier Hufkens Gallery from Brussels and David Kordansky Gallery from Los Angeles. And, from what I hear, Holloway [finally] had his break out year at this year’s Miami Edition of Art Basel; everything on view at the Xavier Hufkens and David Kordansky booths was apparently sold! At full disclosure, I do own his work, of which I am quite honored.

Evan Holloway 

Evan Holloway b.1967 in Whittier CA, USA and who currently resides and works in Los Angeles, CA, received both his BA in Fine Art and MFA from the UCLA. When I asked Xavier Hufkens who was his first major gallerist (and who also worked with the important American sculptor John Chamberlain) some years ago why he picked Evan Holloway, he replied, “I just liked his work.” “How interesting! “ I thought. I did not know then that Hufkens had worked with John Chamberlain (meaning Hufkens has an eye for sculpture) until I saw one of John Chamberlain’s sculptures paired with Evan Holloway’s “Battery” sculptures at the Xavier Hufkens Gallery Booth at 2015 edition of Frieze Art Fair in New York City.

Today, many artists are multi-media artists; they do sculpture, they do photography, they do painting but Holloway, as far as I know, is a pure sculptor. It’s quite a challenge to survive as a pure sculptor because it is well known that art collectors generally prefer paintings they can put on a wall rather than sculptures which take up space in an apartment or home.

The artist Mark Grotjahn wrote in an essay about Evan Holloway’s works “Trees, Head, Molds” that he (Grotjahn) co-owned and operated a gallery called Room 702 with the Inaugural Exhibition at their Gallery (Room 702) being with Evan Holloway— “our first show and maybe our best show.”

Evan Holloway sculptures whether the Tree works, or the Heads or the Molds and now the Batteries, have a poetry about them. Minimalism comes to mind when one looks at his work. Beauty, Nature, the Environment, Social Responsibility many different ideas permeate his work. One can imagine Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau appreciating Evan Holloway’s work. Holloway’s color palate is thoughtful and in some cases has a mathematical structure to it. He seems like an artist who likes to have fun, too, although I’ve never met him.

I could go on and on, but my recommendation is: explore Evan Holloway. You will see his work at the de la Cruz Collection in Miami and in many other fine collections around the world.