One of the most popular sayings about gardens is a quote by Janet Kilburn Phillips: “There are no gardening mistakes, only experiments.” The same is true for art, inspiring painters like Luba Holland in their visual experiments and subject studies.

The idea of a garden is multifaceted and seems to resonate with the profound urges of the contemporary world. It is no coincidence it became the subject for several recent art festivals, like Manifesta 12’s 2018 concept The Planetary Garden: Cultivating Coexistence and the Riga International Biennale of Contemporary Art’s 2020 edition and suddenly it all blossoms. Looking at the whole world as a complex intertwining of different systems that depend on each other, artists and critics are drawn to the fragile and powerful essence of gardens.

Born in Russia, with its old folklore traditions rooted in the poetization of natural phenomena, Luba also seeks to depict the interaction between micro and macro levels of life. “The worlds of plants and humans are inseparable,” Luba says. “We are one, we grow each other, within each other. Garden is not just the place outside we come to rest, enjoy, and contemplate nature, but the place within our minds and souls, which we create for our spiritual recumbence, or for peaceful and invigorating retreat, for meditation or as a place to hide from the outside world.”

Luba sees her acrylic canvases as visual allegories of different states of the human soul, represented through images that often refer to female fairy figures from Slavic mythology. She attempts to capture the sense of enigma through the combination of realistic elements, linearity, and abstract background, shaped with fluid watercolour effects. Believing in the therapeutic, harmonizing power of art, she chooses a vibrant, intensive palette which, together with the transparent, simple (even somewhat naïve) manner of painting, is reminiscent of the art of batik and its masters, like Sarkasi Said. Similar to batik, Luba’s works have a decorative quality, leaving an impression of contemplating the surrounding world with one’s eyes wide open.

Luba Holland is a Russian-born artist who currently resides in Germany. She studied at the College of Art in her hometown Kazan, later entering the local Architectural Academy, where she majored in Interior Design from 1994-2000. When the move to a foreign country unwillingly put her design career on hold, she focused on her painting and drawing practice. Since 2006 she has lived in Munich, working as an artist and freelance art and drawing teacher. Her works have been internationally exhibited in Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, North Macedonia, India, South Korea, Iran, and the United States, and are included in collections in Germany, the United Kingdom, South Korea and Australia.

Artist Statement

In my art I try to depict things that exist beyond physical tangible substances. What becomes important is the inner world of a person. In my imagination I travel around the world of untamed emotions, whether calm or hysterical, but sincere, trying to give them physical expression through shapes and colours. Like donors’ blood, my artwork “infuses”; the viewer with emotions, reminding them of the human ability to feel. As a donor of emotion, I am being revitalized myself through this process again and again with each artwork. Cultivating beauty and creativity is part of my essence.

About My Work

In my art I engage in investigation and interpretation of deep spiritual values, such as love, wisdom, virtue, justice, freedom, as well as the inner cosmos of a person, unity with primal roots and nature, and the fragility of its existence.

In my recent works I have steered toward creating VISUAL ALLEGORIES, painting-stories with multiple meanings. By evoking the question “What if?” art has the power to shift paradigms. Through imagination and hyperbole, paintings turn reality into fantasy, our contemporaries are reincarnated as heroines of folk tales, and often back again. What if…I was a Sirin? What if…the Blue Bird was captured and domesticated? What if… we swapped places with plants?

I grew up close to nature. Myths, legends, folklore of different peoples spellbound me. Flora is a roman goddess of flowers, spring, vegetation, and fertility, a symbol for nature and plants. Alkonost, Gamayun, and Sirin are the most beloved and respected mythical creatures in Russian folklore. They appear as birds with the head and a chest of a beautiful maiden, living in the gardens near paradise. They represent our deepest human emotions: joy, sadness, wisdom, love, lust, luck… My latest works investigate the “inner garden” of a person, the imaginary world, the parallel reality. The worlds of plants and humans are inseparable, we are one, we grow each other, within each other. Garden is not just the place outside we come to rest, enjoy, and contemplate nature, but the place within our minds and souls, which we create for our spiritual recumbence, or for the peaceful and invigorating retreat, for meditation or as a place to hide from the outside world. Is your garden full of sunlight, flowers, bees, and birds or is it shady, mossy, and quiet? it is totally up to you. According to the rules of imagination, your garden can change to whatever you want or need it to be at a given moment.

We all carry an ancient wisdom within us, which we can turn to any time we are looking for answers, we just must find that secret garden in our souls or create it from scratch, wherever that wisdom shell resides. I believe in the healing qualities of art. I hope my art brings solace, joy, and inspiration to the viewer.

I find great pleasure and joy in working with acrylic paints and inks. They allow me to use the combination of fine elaborated patterns and realistic images with bold abstract techniques, such as liquid painting, and watercolor effects. Vibrant “happy” colors, awakening the visual senses of a viewer, are essential.

There are many creative geniuses whom I admire and who have affected the way I have developed as an artist. I still turn to their works for inspiration and to create the MOOD in which I work most productively. Among them are not only artists, but great composes and writers: Francis Picabia, Victor Vasarely,  M.C.Escher, F.Hundertwasser, Lewis Carroll,  Antonio Vivaldi, Johann Bach, and Pyotr Tchaikovsky to name a few.

Luba Holland is the Bronze Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for artists. To see the full body of work and profile, get a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

www.lubaholland.com

Plant Your Beans on Good Friday

British novels fed my student imagination. I longed to wander the moors in a black dress or watch waves pound a rocky shore in Cornwall. I went to England and raced from castles to cathedrals, taking copious notes on period architecture and stained glass….

Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

https://randomstoryteller.com/

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

www.jackiedilorenzo.com

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

www.theodoreheubleinart.com

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

http://richdisilvio.com

Triptych: Hollyhock Profusion

In the Higher Elevations of Hope

picture me slumped, daydreaming in a red canvas chair in a walled New Mexican garden, warm adobe against violet shadows cast by ancient aspen, but in the Taos sun beneath empyrean’s cerulean…

Distinguished Writer of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see the full body of work, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

Artist Statement

In setting a theme for a body of work I look into how I am seeing the state of the world and how we relate to it through both attachment and disregard. International politics and the environment play a pivotal role in subject matter as much as the pure joy of colour. This passion for colour, my sense of humour and quirkiness drive my style of art. Playing in a variety of mediums gives me the freedom to follow my heart to best convey my meaning.

About My Work

As Covid 19 plagues our survival in an ongoing cycle uniting and dividing populations around the globe as time passes, the vulnerability we face is no less dissimilar to the plight of the oceans’ creatures as they face a bleak environmental future. Evaluating this idea gave rise to a scenario of sea polyps and corals which appear to look in many cases like plants but are in fact of the Kingdom Animalia as we are. Growing singularly yet living like us: Alone and Together. Their uniqueness and incredible beauty are reminiscent of the gloriousness of the flowers and plants we indulge in for scent and design and colour and form. My own garden is a great space to be mindful and contemplative within and is my absolute in between place before I start on any artwork. I love to get my hands in the dirt and feel the earth. As for my job I work with in the fashion business and often find inspiration from the colour and design and tactile nature that is found in materials. I also take any opportunity to reuse and upcycle any materials of any nature that work to tell my story. The first part of this work began with 8 canvases of 60 x 20 that I purchased prior to lockdown and then spent hours watching BBC DVDs of our natural world. These formed a walled garden so to speak. From them I was inspired to further develop the idea into a group of freestanding sea polyps and corals. Some of them represent polyps on the sea floor. Others are imaginary and convey the possibility of future mutated animals as they undergo the stress of living within an environment that is becoming too acid and impacted by disasters, nuclear fallout, and pollution. Only time will tell whether they will become more vulnerable and bleach to death or find some means to evolve into new organisms. Creating my own pigment from the soot of my fireplace evoked for me a comparison of the state of our atmosphere to the state of our choked and clogged lungs as our lifestyle of mass production, consumerism, fossil fuel consumption, and more foul our environment, as well the environments of others.

Sea polyps inhale our carbon dioxide emissions and release them as oxygen, providing up to 25% of our Earth’s requirements. Realizing that we exhale co2 to breathe oxygen and the sea polyps inhale our waste to provide us with the air we breathe, as well as the other gardens on Earth — like the swathes of forests and jungles whose worlds too are fraught — was an enchanting discovery.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

Artist Statement

From my earliest memories, my passion for detail and admiration for the primitive Flemish and 16th century Dutch masters have been a guiding influence. Since moving to France (a country that cherishes past and present) in 1994, a major focus has become creating that juxtaposition in my subject matter. Into that mix, I am now adding the element of tributes to influencing factors in my life. Even as I create my own style, always, we as artists rest upon the shoulders of those masters who came before us.

About My Work

In 1970, my instructor at the El Paso Art Academy put a black wax pencil in my hand and my path in art was decided. My light touch and patience married perfectly with the medium, and the works I created were well received, winning awards from the first exhibition I entered.

Perhaps due to the engineering background in my family, I easily recognize relationship measurements and negative spaces, allowing fairly accurate proportions to develop quickly. Beginning with a gestural drawing on vellum paper, I refine the image to a detailed fine line drawing. I transfer that rendition by redrawing the lines on the back side (seen through the vellum), then tape it to Bristol paper plate to finish, rubbing the lines on the surface with a rounded blunt instrument thereby transferring a faint image to the final support. After daubing up any excess carbon with a kneaded eraser, I faintly redraw the lines. Next, I apply 40-plus light layers of black Prismacolor pencil lines using a needle-sharp point without any erasing or smearing, gently increasing pressure in the darkest areas.

After twenty years of drawing, selling, exhibiting, and teaching private lessons, I finally discovered the traditional oil painting method I had been searching for. Given my extensive art background, I quickly picked up the methods at the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore.

To create my compositions, I use the same steps as my drawing technique, then transfer the final line drawing to my prepared sapele mahogany board. Grinding my paints using powdered pigments and black oil (cold pressed linseed oil boiled with lead), I also place a thin layer of my hand-made medium (black oil mixed with a gum mastic crystal solution) before each area I am currently painting. The first overall layer on the toned board is in burnt umber creating a sepia rendition to establish values and confirm the composition. That is usually followed by three layers of color. It is finished with a final layer of scumbling and glazing as needed. To achieve delicate, tiny detail I paint using jeweler’s glasses and most often utilize size 000 Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable brushes. Though I do not apply thick amounts of paint, with each successive layer affected by the prior layers, the final painting has a feeling of surprising depth.

Despite the tight realism, many of my pieces are not actual reproductions of anything I have seen, but rather a composite of various images I have taken over the years, augmented with sketches and imagination. Often, I deliberately flatten and slightly distort perspective, as did the old masters, to create a composition more pleasing to the eye. Everything is created freehand with no mechanical or reproductive means.

Distinguished Artist of the ArtAscent Gardens call for entry. To see this in print, grab a copy of the ArtAscent Art & Literature Journal Gardens issue.

https://annjamesmassey.com