When I wrote an update on painter Karen Hollingsworth in early 2010, as a follow up to my original post from 2006, I was admiring her series of window paintings, luminous white-themed room interiors in which sunlight and air have a palpable presence.
Hollingsworth is continuing with that theme, but this year has introduced a new series in which she takes a dramatic turn, with room interiors that are dark, often to the point of being black, sometimes punctuated with the white spaces of open windows and focusing on sharply lit subjects.
In her choice of foreground subjects she had continued with themes of chairs, wooden floors and white cloth-covered tables, often accented with bright colors in the form of fruit. To these she has added a recent theme of birds, in flight or perched, that carry the careful geometry of her compositions into a different plane.
Some of the new dark compositions have a feeling of Vermeer’s window-and-object relationships. The different series have a fascinating degree of contrast and continuity.
Hollingsworth now has a book of her work, titled Windowscapes that was designed and edited by her husband, artist Neil Hollingsworth. You can see a preview of the book on Blurb; be sure to use the controls under the image to view the preview fullscreen.
Hollingsworth’s work is part of a three-woman show, along with Karin Jurick (see my recent post) and Suzy Shultz, at the 16 Patton Gallery in Ashville, North Carolina. The show opens tomorrow, October 22, 2011 and is on view until November 26, 2011.
In addition to her website, Hollingsworth now has a blog, also titled Windowscapes, on which you can find a preview of her work for the show.
