2020 MFA Thesis Work
Logics of Non-Exchange

John Holland (b.1993) is a Canadian artist currently based in Toronto.

John Holland treats paintings like digital images: an array of analog pictorial data arranged, repeated and stored in a uniform scale and palette. This process is a natural extension of his adolescence, one defined by an achievable desire to filter, edit, and curate his digital identity.

Embodying this digital way of seeing, Holland’s current series of abstract acrylic paintings never reaches a state of completion, but develops and expands into a complex system of versioning—or the creation of multiple copies and variants—with the addition of each iterative painting. Yet in contrast to an oversaturated digital landscape, his figurative compositions are highly reductive with elements that allude to a portrait. These paintings present both the suggestion of a figure and one that has been deleted, while the modularity employed in the process allows for numerous reconfigurations. In turn, individual components take on new forms with the addition of every work created. The familiar process of creating an image of an online self translates into an analog method of painting as an array of endless, filtered possibilities. In this way, Holland transposes the experience of editing an image online onto the canvas.

Instagram: @johnhollandstudio