Born in 1962, New York-based Holton Rower creates paintings with a simple yet incredibly beautiful process resulting in incredible color combinations that can be stunningly psychedelic and completely hypnotic. Working with a deep understanding of the nature of paint as a physical substance, Rower has perfected a technique of cascading doctored paint onto plywood. He directs and collaborates with the force of nature leaving an element of the artistic process to the effects of gravity.
Rower expresses a fascination with the substance of the various materials he uses particularly in his “Pour” paintings. With the process as intriguing as the resultant kaleidoscopic canvas, Holton toys with the precarious relationship between artistic manipulation and chance. His abstract creations recall the psychedelic art of the 1960s whilst resembling a fossilized form of acidulous color.
Cup by cup, hundreds of different colors cascade down, determining their own path like a flowing stream of lava. In several of the works, Intention dams have been built on the paintings’ surface forcing the paint to flow around it. Holton experiments with the forces of nature, letting his artistic process be guided by gravity.
Within each pour painting, which consists of up to 50 gallons of paint, Rower toys with intent and outcome. Whilst he carefully selects the color order, and the pouring of the paint is precise, much of the resultant image is a product of chance. With no premeditated outcome and minimal artistic manipulation, the resultant artwork is a kaleidoscopic creation resembling a fossilized form.
Rower is an inventor and a tinkerer, a constructor and builder more than a painter; and all his works regardless of whether they go on the wall or the floor are most related to sculpture. The “cutaways” series is no exception; Rower has made a sculptural relief of paint, many inches thick, into which he cuts a topography of mounds and shapes. A wall piece may contain over 100 paintings; snippets of text, repeated shapes, and colors. These are all compressed into a three-dimensional “volume” of paintings that are incised. The composition of the final work is thus based on many previous decisions, all buried under layers of paint, re-emerging from selective excavation.
These “cutaways” debuted at Venus LA in a full show of multiple wall and floor pieces. Here we exhibit the longest piece from that show and a new partner completed recently with the same dimensions. These extreme panorama works were designed as mates in scale and palette, one featuring a cresting wave or perhaps a precipice, the other a plateau. Intervening between the paintings is a floor piece, showing how this type of “3D painting” can itself be turned into a 3D object.
Evocative of Kandinsky, and the effect synesthesia had on his work, the repetition of the various rivers of color within Holton’s art create an underlying rhythm which pulsates throughout his work. Like a piece of music, his pour paintings have soft and subtle sections that quietly sing in the background, whilst louder more aggressive colors jump forward akin to the intense crescendo of musical composition. Juxtaposing earthy hues with bright and almost luminescent colors, Rower’s work is reminiscent of the psychedelic art of the 1960’s. SImultaneously calming yet exuberant, one can happily be drawn into the acidulous colors and hypnotic nature of the pour paintings.
Rower has shown his paintings in a number of exhibitions including Kunsthaus Orlikon, Zurich, Switzerland, Galerie Maeght, Paris, France, Cencebaugh Contemporary, New York, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, The Hole, New York, and Shizaru, London, England.