HOLLY LOWEN

Originally trained in interior architecture before earning an MFA inpainting, Lowen’s work is grounded in a strong understanding ofcolor, form and composition. Working across oil, pen, charcoal, andpastel, she builds surfaces on top of an absorbent vinyl paint thatcreates a rich tonal depth, recalling Peter Paul Rubens’ use ofopulent colors. In Colosseum, Lowen’s paintings of tennis playersoperate as studies in behavioral performance, where bodies cyclethrough moments of intensity, collapse, and recovery. While theirmovements echo the rhythm of battle, her figures are dressed inclassic white uniforms, projecting a façade of extreme composure.This tension underscores the psychological stakes of her scenes,where control is both performed and at risk of unraveling.

Lowen uses figuration as a pathway to abstraction, entanglingsubjects in environments that exist just beyond the threshold ofreality. Throughout the exhibition, bodies are fragmented, elongatedor obscured, disrupting our understanding of the figures before us.In State of Nature, Lowen employs sequential fragmentation,reminiscent of photographs by Eadweard Muybridge, to conveybursts of motion across time within a single frame. Similarly, inLeviathan, male figures’ limbs are intertwined in a compositioncharged with latent sexuality. The artwork titles reference EnglishPhilosopher Thomas Hobbes, who defines Leviathan as an authoritywho enforces our social contract, and State of Nature as a conditionwhere humanity would collapse in the absence of authority.Elsewhere in the exhibition, figures appear in fallen states: such asin Collapse, where bodies recline and fold into one another.Lowen’s scenes carry a disquieting, dreamlike ambiguity, whereimpossible anatomies and unstable compositions blur the linebetween familiar and uncanny.

Lowen’s new body of work marks a departure from purely highenergy action toward moments of suspension, focusing on figureswho are not playing but orbit the game, encompassing a broadersocial commentary. In Dunbar’s Number, a ball boy watches amatch from afar, embodying a system structured by aspiration andsubordination. Nearby, in Shared Myth, a group of teenage girlsfocus intently on a string with a stark red hue that unsettles thescene, reminiscent of the mythological Ariadne’s thread. Deprivedof facial expressions, we are left to wonder whether they are friendsor rivals, a strategy that recalls the work of René Magritte, for whomfacelessness transformed ordinary scenes into philosophicalpuzzles. In Lowen’s work, hidden identities become an ominouscritique on societal repression.

An animal counterpart appears in Fragile Society, where chickensare suspended mid-fall, locked in the violent choreography of acockfight, an ancient blood sport shaped by human intervention.This recalls Lowen’s early series of intertwined flamingos, paintedas symbols of both grace and strength. Her depictions of birdsstem from an interest in the juxtaposition between their refined appearance and fierce, instinctual behavior. Though now largelydomesticated, chickens retain a deeply ingrained hierarchicalstructure, particularly among roosters where dominance isenforced. This underlying aggression calls attention to the limits ofimposed order—a parallel that resonates with her scenes of tennis,a sport that masks aggression within a controlled social framework.Lowen is ultimately interested in the human desire to impose orderon chaos, and the consequences of repressing primal instincts.While society channels these impulses into acceptable outlets likesports, Lowen posits that such instincts do not disappear, butaccumulate, potentially emerging in unpredictable ways.

Courtesy Perrotin.