SCROLL DOWN TO SEE EXHIBITION OF SIX VIDEOS + PHOTOGRAPH COLLECTIONS
INSTALLATIONS, VIDEOS, AND PHOTOGRAPHS BY EVAN HOLM
This online exhibition remains open for viewing ongoing
NOTE: Online Exclusive for Artsy, July 15 - September 11, 2022 (ended)
ARTIST STATEMENT
With the universal temporary loss of gallery spaces, I felt compelled to share my work with the public in new formats and through non-traditional avenues. I developed the concept of Sightings in partnership with Vessel Gallery, as a means to directly engage Oakland residents within our public outdoor cityscape. Throughout the fall, winter, and spring months of 20/21, I installed a series of sculptures in unique and unexpected urban spaces. I consider these spheres to be a family of visitors, settling lightly upon the ground in locations throughout the landscape. In witnessing their newfound ecosystems with a presence of harmony and calming balance, these spheres act as lenses for us; a sight-glass for us as individuals to look more closely at our inhabitable spaces and internal landscapes. —Evan Holm
SPHERE | Sierra
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SPHERE | San Antonio
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SPHERE | Sausal Tunnel
‘currents’ (2021), composed by Alexandra Stefans, performed and recorded on site
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SPHERE | South Kennedy
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SPHERE | Damon Slough
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SPHERE | Sausal
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CURATOR’S REFLECTION STATEMENT
2022 Under the collective desire to beat COVID and safely return to a new normalcy, viewing the documentary videos of artist Evan Holm’s "Sightings" allows us to see the works exemplifying the ongoing evolution of adaptation to the World Pandemic. Holm had been working on large, ghost-like jewels pre-pandemic for exhibit at Vessel Gallery, but as the pandemic was upending our lives, it altered the presentation of these site-specific spheres. The continued desire to show the work, amidst the restriction of shelter-in-place, morphed into a migration of even more ephemeral installations at six carefully selected landscapes. March 2020 was a force to be reckoned with, changing the course of all our lives, as it did to this show of Holm’s delicate spheres. Holm overcame the physical limitations of social gathering by pivoting fluidly and using new limitations to bring new meaning to his arresting on site created installations.
“Sightings” imbues the spheres with the power to elicit one’s personal experience and emotions with COVID - the fragility of life, the environment, the quiet and stillness of time, a life often standing still, yet in motion - while providing space for distinctive social political views and individuation in class, race, privilege, or origins of heritage. Each "Sightings" video documentary reflects candidly, metaphorically, and symbolically. Through Holm’s work, we can recall our fragility, and see the beauty of a singular, quiet urban space revealed, responding to light of day, the particulars of the environs, and the ongoing discussion of distancing versus quarantine. The spheres can represent the global nature of experience; the hollow center as a metaphor for abundance of sharing; the fragility of the material as collective loss and grief, or the preciousness of time, of life, the desire for new order. The glowing aura, descending sphere reflect light, bringing healing hope moving through sadness; the loneliness of singularity amidst a dire need for unity, beauty, and restoration.
Holm’s videos allow us to survey our understandings of these pandemic times and asks where and how shall we take our learned lessons, lived experiences through this art. Interpreting transformative change, will we shift our concerns to build anew of universality, unity, healing, and betterment of humanity? —Lonnie Lee, Curator, 2022
DEBUT ONLINE EXHIBITION
March 20 – May 8, 2021 Debut Online Exhibition, Extended Online Viewing
ARTIST TALK: Thursday, April 22, 2021, 7:30–8:30 PM, Zoom, Instagram. Click for Details.
CLOSING OUTDOOR INSTALLATION: Saturday, May 8, 2021
A public invitation to watch outdoor installation by the artist, weather permitting. Details to follow.
CURATOR’S STATEMENT
2021 In January of 2020 I began discussions with artist Evan Holm on his follow up to “River Made No Sound” show with Vessel Gallery and how we would exhibit his new work in our new space. We examined and selected rooms and discussed how the work would respond to the space, planning for an installation offering the optimal experience for the viewers. We had just opened in our new location, programming was set in motion and our excitement and anticipation to put forth another show for Evan kept our spirits high. On March 15th, COVID shut our doors. While our programming plans would continue to shift as the months went by, acclimating to pandemic information we were learning day by day, by June we learned our newly beloved space would not allow us to operate and gather safely under COVID conditions.
Together Evan and I began a new conversation: “How can we bring this work to our audience safely under these new conditions? Knowing the ephemeral quality of the work indoors, what about outdoors? Evan can you do these outside? What happens to this work when it is outdoors?” That conversation then led to a new context for the work, resulting in a new series of installations - “SIGHTINGS” - a process that culminates with the intention to showcase specifically as an online exhibition.
The ephemeral quality of the work remains, even more so under the conditions of Mother Nature and human interaction. Among other things, “SIGHTINGS” telegraphs the conditions and restraints that COVID has imposed on us, a challenge that defines much of the past year, teaches us to be adaptable, responsive, and accepting, and to acclimate to the evolving challenges of pandemic pandemonium. We are proud to bring forth Evan Holm’s “SIGHTINGS”, which documents the artist’s response to new conditions by creating installations outdoor in rogue fashion. The results are the contemplative and ephemeral, yet sudden, outdoor appearances of calm offerings; serenity amidst the uncertainty with which we all still grapple. —Lonnie Lee, 2021
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